For the Love of Fire Princess
by drakensis
Summary: Please remember that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive and survive, there are still some things that make us all the same. Everybody needs somebody to love. Azula/SI
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I'm not sure who owns Avatar but it was created by DiMartino & Konietzko. Original idea for this fic is Psyckosama's.

Waking with a headache is never a good sign for the rest of the day. I rolled over, pulled the silk sheets up around me and thanked my good fortune for a shift pattern that made getting up in the morning entirely optional. In my own defence, I was still half asleep and it took me a moment to register the anomaly.

Silk sheets?

Hell no. I don't use those anytime, much less mid-winter. I should have had two duvets keeping me toasty warm. Instead, one light sheet that seemed to be more for modesty than for temperature control. It was actually quite pleasantly warm.

Okay. Dreaming? I seriously doubted it. Not many of my dreams would involve large, luxurious bed... okay, yes, some of them do, but not alone.

Groan, sit up. Look around.

It's a large room – but not exactly cluttered. A couple of dressers near the walls, some artwork that has an oriental feel to it. The bed's a big four-poster job with very thin, veil-like curtains. To keep insects off? The temperature feels tropical, so maybe. Whoever did the decor liked red and black. The tall windows are blocked by heavy curtains – a couple of cracks between then paint lines of light across the carpet. One door, again very tall. This place has a seriously high ceiling. It's nowhere I've ever seen before.

"The hell?" I flipped the sheets back and kicked my legs off the side of the bed, pushing back the curtains until I found a gap. I hadn't been wearing any sleeping garb and the carpet was very soft beneath my feet. It felt expensive. Everything looked expensive. I looked...

Mirror. I need a mirror.

There was one by the door. The face that looked back at me was half-familiar, half strange. The shapes were mostly right but my skin was darker than I was used to, and there were no freckles. I looked young – no beard, more hair up top and that was darker too. Almost black. And I had muscles. Lots of muscles. I could see them moving under the skin. Same nose, same high forehead. My eyes had epicanthic folds and I couldn't tell for sure if they were the same colour. Possibly they were greener, possibly not. Hair, shoulder-length and prone to curl. No change there. I combed it back with my fingers and frowned at the unevenness. Part, near my right temple, had been cut close or shaven and was growing out again. It was still noticeably shorter, after what I guessed must have been several months.

Another shot of pain from my head and I pinched at the bridge of my nose. Water might help. Fortunately there was a jug near my bedside, along with a cup. It wasn't even tepid, suggesting that someone had placed it there not too long before I woke. How long had I been here? What had happened to me? I sipped the water and looked around again.

This time I saw the paper on my pillow. Or perhaps it hadn't been there when I woke. I didn't think of that possibility at the time.

Welcome to the Fire Nation. Yes, that Fire Nation.

Your name here is Liao Quan, grandson of the great General Quan, beloved fiancé of Princess Azula. In the course of the events with which you are familiar, Liao died of a head injury a few months ago. You will recall his memories when you next meet your betrothed.

Not many get a second chance. Don't screw this up.

As missives go, it was short, to the point and utterly terrifying. It also disappeared in a puff of pink smoke once I was done reading it.

It would be nice to say that I immediately sprang into action, a plan leaping to mind. Uh, yeah. Obviously.

"Son of a BITCH!" The water jug smashed against the opposite wall, shards bouncing back on the carpet. I hate it when people play games with me. Second chance? At what? Life? Someone was a judgemental bastard. Unfortunately they were also outside my reach. Water stained the wall.

Okay. Step one, find Azula, get hold of Liao's memories, find out how much trouble I'm in. I looked in the mirror. Right, step one: find some pants. Step two, find Azula. Wherever I am, it has to be high society Fire Nation: if not the Royal Palace then some property belonging to this Liao Quan's family. Walking around with no pants is probably not going to impress anyone. I looked down. Okay, anyone important.

Fortunately, the dressers had some clothes in them and I was using a sash to secure the waist of some breeches when door opened and admitted –

The breath left my lungs as I met golden eyes. It would be romantic, if untrue, to say that it was the girl's beauty that overwhelmed me. Not that Azula is unattractive – far from it. But as promised, the sight of her sent memories flooding through me.

Liao Quan was sixteen, with years fewer memories than I. But there was an intensity to his life that was shocking. And Azula was a powerful part of that life. We'd been engaged almost from birth, by our grandfathers – Fire Lord Azulon rewarding the services of his old comrade Quan with a union of their two houses. It was a contentious match: Quan governed a swathe of the colonies that had been founded in the north-western Earth Kingdom and my grandmother on that side was a war bride, daughter to an Earth Kingdom trading dynasty. My father, child of that marriage, had wed back into the Fire Nation's nobility but not well (I later recalled that Ty Lee was a third cousin through our mothers). Mixed blood was not an attractive feature in those noble houses still embedded in the Home Islands.

Azula and I – and Liao Quan, dammit! – had not met at all in the first decade of the engagement. Her own father didn't favour the match, but even after Azulon's death he was still too recently on the throne to risk forfeiting the support of the Quan. And of course, we had been reared far apart, she here in the Royal Palace and I in my grandfather's marginally less opulent mansion in the colonies. Only after Zuko's exile, with Azula as the new presumptive heir, that I was brought – that Liao Quan was brought to the Home Islands to meet his fiancée.

It hadn't exactly been love at first sight.

"Liao?" Azula didn't waste time on such nonsense as stating the obvious fact that I was awake. "How do you feel?" What I'd seen of Azula in the show would have me expecting, if not malice then at least an implied reminder of superiority in her voice. I wasn't hearing that. For that matter, if it wasn't for Liao's memories to fall back upon I might not even have recognised Azula with her hair down and wearing a ladylike robe rather than the armour that she was more commonly seen in. She looked happy and her words seemed more concerned than anything. What bizarre world was I in? Her eyes narrowed sharply after a moment and I realised that I was staring mutely at her.

"You take my breath away," I told her, making some shift towards gallantry. "You always have."

She placed her hands against my bare chest, rising to tiptoes so that she could kiss me chastely upon the lips. Her skin was warm against mine and I closed my own hands upon her shoulders. Memories of earlier kisses flooded through me. Not many, we – Liao and... Fuck it. It feels like we. - we had been chaperoned fairly closely most of the time. Of course, most of those kisses had been from a time when there hadn't been a chaperone at all.

We were both slightly flushed when we – by mutual consent – drew a little apart. The smile on her lips was possessive – but also almost... joyous. "Finish getting dressed," she instructed me. "Breakfast is being served. And then we're going to be leaving on a romantic cruise."

"Another one? I can hardly wait." The last one had more or less worked out, I supposed, based on Liao's memories.

"Just you, me, Lo, Li and a small army of firebenders."

"It sounds very intimate," I agreed drily. Azula laughed, kissed me again and was gone. Imperious, affectionate and - lest I forget - daddy's girl. Heaven help me, I liked her.

.oOo.

The servants, fortunately, had a better idea of where suitable clothes were than I did. Something simple – a silk shirt and a lightweight robe – was deemed suitable for informal dining with a royal princess. One of them tied the elaborate laces that secured my boots to my feet. I resolved to try not to trip over the spectacularly pointed toes (turned out not to be a problem). The same woman put my hair in a topknot that according to Liao's memories signified my warrior status. I wasn't looking forward to doing that for myself, hopefully muscle memory would guide me.

No mention was made of the broken jug or of the damp wall. They simply, efficiently, began to clear up. I suppose given the occasional royal tantrum anything less than fire damage was unlikely to cause excitement. I left them to it and for the first time left the bedchamber.

I didn't have any trouble finding where breakfast was being served, the smell was rather a giveaway and I could practically feel my mouth watering. Nowhere in the royal palace – except the dungeons – served subpar food, but the cooks who served Azula's apartments were second only to her father's. In theory they served the whole wing, which was large enough to accommodate half a dozen royal siblings, but since Zuko's exile it had been Azula's domain.

I took the time to refresh my memory of recent events in Liao Quan's life. I'd been in the colonies, leading a company of soldiers when we were ambushed by a good-sized force of Earth Kingdom soldiers supported by earthbenders. I hadn't even been a target – we were escorting my father between the family estates and the army he commanded in the rather nebulous region that could be considered the frontline. A boulder the size of an elephant had flattened his palanquin with him inside it.

It surprised me for a moment to feel that Liao's grief was distant – a matter of duty not close affection for his father. But then, they had seen little enough of each other – Liao's father had been busy working his way up the ranks of the army, duties that took him away from the family estates for months at a time. It was his mother and his grandfather who were the real parental figures in his life.

The sight of his – our? – father's death had been the last thing that I had seen before a smaller stone caught me in the temple. Presumably this was the head injury that had killed him according to the note. So how I had come to be in the Royal Palace was a mystery to be solved, although the answer would clearly lie with Azula.

I didn't even have to raise a hand before the door was silently whipped open in front of me. So this was being waited on hand and foot. I could see the appeal, but I suspected that it would become smothering, given time. The dining room was like the rest of the place. Rather formal. Azula was sat on a modest throne at the far end of the room, a table of black wood in front of her. Similar tables were lined down either side of the room's central aisle, cushions behind them for lesser mortals to kneel at while they ate facing the aisle. Informal dining, Fire Nation style.

"...understand your attachment to your fiancé," said one of the two crones facing Azula, their backs to the door. "But surely it will not be necessary to remove him from the palace while you are retrieving your brother. He can be tended easily here while you are away and should he awaken then he will be here for you upon your return."

Azula chewed gently upon a cherry, giving every appearance of considering the advice she was receiving. Since leaving my chamber she'd put her hair up in the tight bun that resembled my own topknot. Her expression was colder: public face I guessed. Much what I'd seen in the show. Something Liao had seen many times. She, of course, could see me entering, but she gave no sign of it.

The other old woman added: "The physicians advise that a sea voyage might pose a threat to his recovery, highness. Surely you would not risk his health merely out of sentiment." I didn't know if it was Li or Lo making that point, but I doubted their sincerity. The pair of them were Ozai's creatures – had been as far back as Liao could recall. And Ozai did not enjoy the idea of his daughter and heir marrying someone of mixed blood.

If I was still comatose, left in the palace without Azula's immediate protection, there was a very good chance my health would go into a sudden and terminal decline. How sad. I had no doubt that I would be far more pleasing to the Fire Lord as a dead martyr. And curiously, I could believe that Azula would be genuinely grief-stricken. That... I searched my memory. Liao's memory, rather. A bratty girl who played the perfect child for her father. Yes, that was what she had been like when we first met. Who did Azula trust enough now to see past that facade? And if the answer was no one...

Yes. That made sense. No wonder that in the end, left behind by Ozai, defeated by Zuko and Katara, there had been nothing left.

"I suppose that you are correct," she said at last. "Until Liao awakens, he can remain here at the palace." She met my eyes and her lips curved very slightly. "How I hate to be parted from him."

The old crones weren't stupid and picked up the cue that there was someone behind them.

"Well, I think a sea voyage would do wonders for my health."

It was hard to tell through the wrinkles, but I think the look on their faces were venomous.

"And after being away for two years... well, I'd really rather not be parted from you either, Azula. How convenient that we won't have to be." Servants hastened to lay trays of food upon the small table nearest to Azula's left hand and I took the hint, walking past the two old woman to reach that table.

"Lord Quan," the first to speak said. "How good it is to see that you have awoken at last. We have all been very worried for you. Perhaps you should consult a physician before joining the expedition however. Head injuries can be so dangerous."

Azula picked another cherry from one of the bowls on her table. "My personal surgeon is seeing to Liao's care. There is no need to concern yourselves." She glanced towards the door. "Instead, why don't the two of you make your own preparations to depart. You can also spread the good news of Liao's recovery. We have private matters to discuss."

"Your highness, for propriety's sake..."

"Do you imagine I would endanger my beloved's recovery?" Icy anger dripped from her every word. Oh yeah, that's a side of Azula that didn't surprise me one little bit. "I will see the two of you on the ship when it is time to depart. Until then I suggest that you find other things to occupy your time."

They left. Azula did not relax her stiff posture, giving me no clue as to what to do. Sit? Go to her? She was prickly, stubborn, proud. And fourteen. I – not Liao, I – remember having a fourteen year old sister. Admitting that she needed anything or anyone would not be easy for her. Which didn't mean that it wasn't true.

L'audace, l'audace. Toujours l'audace. A brilliant military leader said that and it might appeal to Azula. Instead of sitting at the table, I stepped over to hers and went to one knee, putting our faces on a level. There were only two cherries left in the bowl and I scooped them up, offering one to her. She held my gaze for a moment before leaning forwards slightly and closing her lips around it, barely brushing the tips of my fingers. I ate the other cherry and waited for her to say something.

"How much do you remember?"

"I remember you. How could I not?" I paused. "There are... other matters I am less certain of."

"Your father is dead."

"That was almost the last thing I saw before – before today. I gather it was very nearly the last thing I ever saw."

Her expression was fierce. "I almost lost you. I am not letting you go again."

"I hope you don't expect me to argue with you on that." I moved back to my own table and this time I did kneel behind it. "So, why don't you tell me about this romantic cruise that we're setting off on?"

.oOo.

Azula's explanation was more than sufficient to orientate me with regard to recent events. It was two weeks since the Night of the Red Moon – something that had coincided with my beginning to show signs of stirring from the coma. News filtering back from the remains of Zhao's expeditionary force had been enough for Ozai to declare his brother as a traitor and order his arrest, along with that of Zuko. Obviously such an important mission could not be entrusted to just anyone, and so Azula was given the responsibility for accomplishing it. I had my doubts, but she didn't seem to share them.

"My uncle is an old fool and my brother -" Words seemed to fail her as she snorted in disgust.

"Well I wasn't worrying about him, although we aren't all as gifted as you are." I cracked my knuckles. "The Dragon of the West is another matter. He may have let himself go... but would your father have given you this mission unless it was worthy of your talents?"

Azula's brow furrowed. "Perhaps there is something to what you say." I wasn't sure how much weight she'd put on it – I had the sense that she was humouring me. But then, that in itself was far more tolerance than I would have expected even with Liao's memories. Clearly the two years he had been away had changed her. I wondered how much Liao had changed – other than becoming me of course.

"In the interests of not spoiling my appetite with the subject of – what did you call him? Zuzu? – let's discuss something else. Your firebending, for example. I'm sure that you must have improved since your last letter." It was, as I recalled, a major topic of those letters. There really is only so much about standing watching your father imposing his will upon bellicose Fire Nation nobility that even the most besotted teenage girl will include in her love letters.

Speaking of which, I reminded myself, she's fourteen, you dog. Even if she doesn't act like any fourteen year old girl that you've met before. Don't do anything stupid. Mutinous sixteen year old parts of me sulked, particularly when Azula smiled.

"I've attained heights of firebending that most masters don't even dream of."

"So the guardians of your maidenly virtue are only carping two or three times about every step you make." We exchanged smiles. Their constant criticism of details of Azula's firebending that I found imperceptible – and as Liao had been a firebender, I presumed that I was too – was as nothing as to the amount of fuss that Lo and Li made if there was the least suspicion that Azula and I had in any way violated the strictures of Fire Nation courtship. Given the tales that were still circulating about the two of them when they were our age, that made them hypocrites, but Liao had found their speculations most educational when he was thirteen.

This had been after we had spent three months shipwrecked upon a smallish island as a result of our last 'romantic cruise'. It had, as far as Liao recalled, been quite an interesting occasion if you considered being solely responsible for feeding yourself and an injured eleven year old girl based on a rather limited knowledge of fishing and farming. Fortunately, we had been found before the storm season began. Mind you, the sudden absence of the Fire Lord's only non-banished heir and her fiancé had started unseasonal storms between the Fire Lord and my grandfather.

"I'm sure that they'll be more than happy to help you get back into shape." Azula seemed at least a little too pleased about that prospect, but I suppose I had it coming. "I want you in your best fighting form when we reach the colonies. After all, anything less might lead your mother to believe I wasn't taking care of you properly."

Something about that sent a chill down my spine. Then I remembered Liao's mother and understood perfectly. "She's been writing to you?"

"Oh yes. Very regularly. I can see you inherited that trait from her side of the family." She smiled. "My grandfather framed one of your grandfather's letters once. Father gave it to me after he took the throne."

"Oh?"

" 'Have the honour to report capture of seven enemy generals outside Omashu. Congratulations upon birth of Prince Ozai. Quan.' " The quotation seemed to please her. "Most generals would be a little more excited about one of the most successful campaigns for a decade. And the calligraphy is atrocious."

"Well, he didn't become a general by shedding the blood of your grandfather's enemies with a writing brush. Mind you, if the stories are to be believed he did kill an enemy officer with a signal fan during a night-time reconnaissance."

"A signal fan? But why did he not – ah, night-time reconnaissance. So he must have been very close to the enemy." Azula seemed fascinated by this tale of military accomplishment. She wasn't just a pyromaniac, after all.

"Indeed. And having hidden the body of said officer so that no one realised he had been there, the following dawn he marched a regiment right through those supposedly well hidden fortifications," I concluded. After a moment I gestured to indicate that no, really, that was the end of the story.

My princess gave me a sharp look. "You are a true son of Quan," she declared. "Although you never used to have difficulty emptying your plate."

I looked down at the food that I had been picking at in a desultory. Not being an afficando of eastern foodstuffs, it hadn't looked very appetising, but the smell and the fact that apparently I had 'inherited' Liao Quan's tastebuds along rest of him had overcome those reservations. "I was a growing boy." It was hard to guess exactly how tall I was now, but I felt about the same height. "But you are right. It seems my appetite has not fully recovered yet."

She clapped her hands sharply, drawing the instant attention of the servants who had been discreetly attending upon us. "Summon the physician for Lord Quan," she ordered. "Until then, I wish to be alone with my fiancé."

It was a credit to their survival instincts that none of them seemed to even pause in weighing the later wrath of Li and Lo against the immediate fury of Azula.

When we were alone: "You once told me how foolish it was to hide pain behind bravado. Do I need to teach you the same lesson?"

I appeared to have annoyed her. "I have a slight headache. I am more tired than I should be for such trivial exertion as I have had since I woke. I am not in pain." My voice was a trifle testy and I forced myself to be calm. Anger would accomplish nothing here. "I am... embarrassed."

She half-rose from her chair. "Embarrassed? To have been ambushed by a pack of cowardly Earthbenders? The soldiers of your company report that you killed three of them yourself."

For a moment I saw a rush of fire from my hands. Blackened fire that had once been a face. My gorge rose and I lowered my face, trying to hide the difficulty that I was having in keeping my meal down.

"Perhaps it is foolish of me."

"Yes." Now she was standing in front of me. "It is foolish, Liao Quan. I did not choose a fool to stand beside me so please do not play at being one." Her hand touched my chin, drawing it up, as her voice lowered to a whisper. "The opinion of a few sycophants does not matter to me."

"And who else's opinion matters?" I smiled thinly. "Well, other than your father's."

"No ones. My father will recognise you given time. We will be the strongest couple in the world." She drew closer. I could smell her perfume. "I don't know why he sent you away."

"Because like any ruler, his power rests on the love and the fear of his people. And I love you more than I fear him."

Azula's eyes went wide for an instant and her hand flicked to my collar drawing me forwards into a passionate kiss.

All things considered, the physician really didn't pick the ideal moment to enter the room.

.oOo.

I really was embarrassed to find that I did feel a little unstable as I walked back to the bedchamber. Possibly it was the result of Liao's long coma, or perhaps shock on my part. Most likely both.

Azula most assuredly did not hover over me during that little stroll. While word of our little indiscretion had probably not reached the ears of her father yet, a combination of the implicit threat that being caught in a display of affection carried with it and the quite genuine need to make the usual last minute preparations for departure had drawn her away.

"You need not look quite so smug, young man." The physician would have looked down his nose at me if it hadn't been for the fact I was noticeably larger than he was. "You didn't invent that sort of behaviour, however fond you might be of it."

"Clearly I shall have to be more creative." I sat on the bed and started to unlace my boots. A servant, suitably scandalised, hastened to take over that strenuous activity from me. Probably for the best, the knots were unbelievable. "So what are you going to do first? Examine my teeth?"

"I did that while you were comatose. Other than your left incisor there's nothing wrong with them." The physician pressed his fingers against my right temple and pressed. Hard. I took it stoically because it really didn't hurt in comparison to my headache. "Hmm well your skull seems to have healed nicely. Headache?"

"Yeah."

"It'll wear off. Drink tea – jasmine or ginseng will be best – and reflect that you're lucky that you didn't have enough brains in your head to leak out before your skull healed."

I nodded, pulling my head away. "Tea. Great. I'll turn into the Dragon of the West."

"You should be so lucky. Your appetite will return with time. Don't force yourself to eat but keep some food around. Small portions, often, will help you regain your strength better than gorging yourself would. I'd tell you to get some exercise but I'm sure that the Princess will see to that." My expression must have conveyed my 'what the hell' response because he laughed. "And not in the way that you'll like. She's been planning a whole training regime for your recovery and I don't envy you the experience."

Face meet palm. Palm, face. "That doesn't surprise me. Thank you for your advice."

Alone in the room for a moment I lay back and rested my eyes. Fortunately or otherwise, this value of alone meant there were servants in easy earshot – perhaps even watching me discreetly – which meant gibbering in incoherent fear was out of the question. And so, when raging in the confines of my mind proved unsatisfactory venting, I turned my thoughts to the future in hope of distracting myself from my black mood.

The first step of any planning had to be: What did I want?

To go home? Oh God, yes!

But the second step of planning requires a means and I didn't have even the first inklings of how I'd come to be here or if there was anything to return to. For now – for now and until I had something to work with – it was as impossible a dream as being here would have seemed the last time I slept. So there was a little hope at least I thought, unable to restrain one bitter chuckle.

Alright then. Let's aim a little lower. For good to triumph and truth and justice hold sway? Uh... well, tempting I'll admit but there were two fairly salient points that obstructed it. In primus: Aang, Zuko and the rest of their not so merry band managed it well enough without my sticking my oar in. And secundus: I wasn't exactly on their side as things stood. Much the reversed. Now that might be correctable – Zuko managed to turn his coat after all. All I'd have to do was betray Azula in more or less cold blood.

Given what she wound up like after her father brushed off, that would be... Azula's ultimate fate in the show flickered through my mind. Chained on her knees, screaming insanely as her brother left her behind. So reduced that she wasn't even accorded a moment's attention in the epilogue.

Oh goddammit. I hate having a conscience. It's all my parent's fault.

Okay. Assuming for the moment that everything else will work out okay, set myself a goal of keeping Azula more or less sane by the end of all this. Means? Well, putting her first would help. She seems to need someone to lean on and having lost her friends/minions Ty Lee and Mai, then being left behind by Ozai she'd been coming apart at the seams. By the time that Zuko demonstrated that he did have someone – a former enemy like Katara in fact – willing to stand by him she'd been left completely alone.

So being there for her. Which means surviving and means helping her. Which means I'm going to be wearing a black hat, figuratively speaking. I'm gonna get my ass kicked. Repeatedly. And that'll just be Azula getting me up to speed for Liao's firebending, which she'll probably expect to reach a level well above what most would call mastery. Actually getting into a fight with Zuko, Katara or Toph would probably be even worse. And let's not forget the elder generation.

Alright. So I need an edge. Several edges. And a gimmick or two. Well, I've read enough Island on a Sea of Time stories – including the actual book of that title – to have a few ideas. Of course, it would take research and I didn't have a lot of time before I was off on a sea voyage. Pulling myself to my feet I walked to the nearest window, from which the curtains had at some point been drawn back.

Azula's rooms were high up. I hadn't noticed before, the breakfast room looking deeper into the palace, but from this window I could look out across the palace and past scores of other mansions and estates to the edge of the crater that housed the exclusive districts of the city. The industrial regions, of course, were further down the mountain, filling what I guessed had once been open country between the centre of government and the massive port. Not that it mattered right now.

Judging from the position of the sun, it was still well short of noon and Azula had advised that we would depart for the port around mid-afternoon. So I was on a short time-frame and I'd have to be packed and ready to go by then...

I slapped my forehead. No. I didn't have to pack. One clap of my hands had a young woman – a significant majority of Azula's servants were female – standing in the doorway, eyes fixed deferentially on the floor. "Were my clothes and equipment brought here from the Earth Kingdom?" I asked her.

"Only a few items," she said, not looking up as she turned to one of the dressers and opened it to reveal what I recognised as Liao's armour and a heavy looking mace with a cylindrical head – a Ba Chui, his memories supplied. "Princess Azula also ordered clothes prepared for you."

"Very good. Please ensure that it is packed and prepared for travel." I suspected that it would have been done whether I ordered it or not, but it wasn't a risk that I was prepared to take. Jamming my feet back into my boots only took a moment, but I then had to wait until the servant tied them – not that I'd have minded a simple and sloppy knot of my own doing, but the cursed woman didn't ask my permission.

Unless matters had changed since I – Liao – was last in the palace, there was a sizeable reference library in the Royal Palace in addition to whatever private collections might have been assembled by occupants past and present. That was a simple necessity – at any given time the Fire Lord and his councillors might need to know almost anything to help them draw up their plans for military action. And War Minister Qin - an unapologetic admirer of all manner of inventions – didn't like having to bring technical information all the way from his own offices at near the port. There wouldn't be important military secrets there of course, but that wasn't what I wanted.


	2. Chapter 2

I'm not sure how well I'd have dealt with being on a smaller ship – I'm not usually bothered by sea-sickness but the occasional ferry – even at sea – is far more stable than most of the vessels I saw in the harbour. Fortunately, Azula's ship of choice was built on the same hull as the current standard battleship for the Fire Nation Navy and quite possibly larger than anything I'd been at sea on.

That was probably all to the good, since I was being thrown around the deck quite a bit as I worked to get back into shape. Surprisingly Li and Lo had been enthusiastic about Azula taking an active hand in my training and not just because it would involve a fair amount of pain on my part. Their own expertise as teachers was because of their eye for detail – even the tiniest flaw in the firebender's motions was clear to them. By overseeing my own kata, the two of them were pushing Azula to develop the same exacting perception, grilling her ruthlessly over everything that I did.

That, however, was the mornings and while Azula was without the least shred of remorse when it came to the aches and pains of building up the muscle and reflexes that Liao's body had lost during his coma, they were almost idyllic besides the afternoons. That was when Azula worked on her own training and I got to put what I was relearning into practise with the firebenders who had been sent with us.

This time there were only four of them working me over. Possibly they were doing this on behalf of Ozai – Liao had had no idea why the Fire Lord found him so objectionable as a prospective son-in-law and I didn't have enough information to be sure myself. What was clear was that Ozai wasn't going to risk Azula's affections, or alienating my newly acquired grandfather's support, by making a fight of it.

Now I recall Iroh battering his way through a platoon of them, and even Zuko brushed them aside with relative ease. It puts matters in perspective, since I hadn't won a single bout so far. The spiky helmets looked ridiculous, but I hadn't managed to knock one loose so I suppose that the men under then were tough enough to wear them if they liked them so much.

Judging by the way I crashed back into the bulwark surrounding the deck they didn't like me very much. Or maybe they did, in the manner of a favourite punchbag. The kick had been precisely judged, hitting me below the ribs just hard enough to knock me off my feet without doing any permanent damage. I rolled aside before a gout of fire and used the motion to kick off fire in return. They were wearing armour so I'd have to try really hard to hurt them like that. I was dressed for an Agni Kai: bare-chested and barefoot, making it a contest between my agility and their endurance. Which was better than it had been the first day, when both qualities had favoured them, heavily.

Bouncing back to my feet I singled out the nearest of them. Right. This time he was going down. The armour protected his vitals, mostly, but it had to leave some chinks for mobility. And since these fellows – the Royal Procession, essentially an elite bodyguard regiment for the Fire Lord and his family – never removed their armour on duty, their fighting style was based to no small degree upon protecting those chinks. Fine by me – I wasn't aiming for any of them.

There was a white rush of pain as my left shoulder collided with his chest, driving him back a pace, breaking his balance. Acceptable. My free hand feinted for his face, the narrow eye-slits of his helmet a difficult but attainable target. Had he moved to block my hand, he would have exposed his armpit, instead he countered low, one gloved hand heading for my chest to knock me back. As expected.

Forcing past the pain, I brought my left hand flat against his breastplate in culmination of the firebending move I had made out of his sight. Doing this on any sort of large scale took considerable power, since it involved a great deal of heat. And by a large scale, I mean, to a cup of water.

I was applying the technique to a square of metal about a centimetre square and perhaps a few millimetres thick. I was practically on my knees when two of the man's companions grabbed me by my belt-sash and injured shoulder, dragging me away while the third started to hastily undo the straps holding my screaming target's breastplate against him. A breastplate that now had a hole about the size of my fingertip in it, and about that much molten metal running down the inside.

Before anyone says anything, he had significant leather padding beneath it. Anyone sane wearing armour does. I doubted if any of the metal had would actually touch him before he was out of the armour. However, with he and his rescuer now completely distracted, the odds were only two to one. I tangled my legs around those of the man holding my belt and tripped him. One to one and the firebender holding my shoulder let go of me just a moment too long. I didn't have the secure footing necessary for a throw but grabbing his wrist gave me enough traction to yank him towards me and then duck. He spear-dived over me and into his friend, fortunately for me their helmets taking the brunt of the impact as I scrambled away and to my feet.

They were too experienced not to be separating and trying to rise themselves, but doing so left them vulnerable for a bare moment. Fire blazed into the back of the slowest to rise, smashing him to the deck. If he hadn't been wearing armour it would have been a killing blow. If I'd had the time I might have winced in sympathetic pain. I'd taken enough similar hits over the last two days. Mind you, this had been one of the fellow dishing it out so I might not have bothered.

Turn. Jump to avoid a ball of fire that might otherwise have singed parts of me that Azula apparently has plans for. Whirl my arms to send a wave back that washes over the now breastplate-less soldier – harmlessly, as he dissipates it at the last minute. I came down and barely had my feet under me before I had the other two of them double-teaming me.

One was coming up close while the other bombarded me with small flames to force me to split my attention. The obvious tactic was to move to put the first between me and the second, but they were using the limited space between me and the edge of the deck to remove that as an option.

I didn't have time for anything fancy. Fortunately I recalled something about the layout of the ship and – for the second time in thirty heartbeats – resorted to a desperate improvisation. Folding one leg and sliding the other of to one side dropped me almost to the metal deck, disrupting their aim for a moment and then I drove my hands down towards the deck, forcing fire out of them in conscious imitation of something I'd seen Azula do in the show: using her firebending to propel herself like a rocket.

It worked. Sort of. For, oh, about half a second.

The move isn't the sort of thing that a run of the mill firebender is taught: short of Sozin's Comet being in the sky almost no one has the necessary power and even then, not many have the control to pull it off. Given what I'd had to put into breaking through the other guy's breastplate, I really should have known better. What I managed was an explosion that hurled me a few feet up into the air and over the side of the ship. Which had been more or less my intended destination, although the rather charred condition of my hands and ringing in my ears hadn't been part of the scenario.

All things considered I was lucky not to have set myself on fire. As it was, my grab for the anchor chain was almost ruined when I discovered the condition of my hands the hard way. With a howl of pain, I wrapped my legs around it and tried to avoid tumbling into the foaming sea beneath me. I was doing quite well until the motion of the chain cracked the left side of my head against the hull.

.oOo.

When the blackness receded I was in a bunk. Azula's ship was richly appointed, but no ship in this day and age had actual beds – most of the crew managed with hammocks and pallets. The chamber was dimly lit by a few candles and I could hear breathing – I was not alone.

"He has awoken." One of the old crones, I still couldn't tell them apart, must have been watching me from part of the room outside my field of vision. I could have turned my head to look, but really watching them wasn't the most delightful of experiences and I didn't see the need to hasten the moment.

The rustle of boots on carpet: not Li or Lo who weren't that light on their feet. Not a servant who wouldn't have made even that slight noise. I rolled my head slightly to one side and saw Azula glaring down at me. "What did you think you were doing?"

"Improvising. I'll know better than to try that particular technique in the future."

Her golden eyes narrowed. I do believe I'd angered her. "There is a difference between pushing your training and killing yourself. Until I'm convinced that you know how to distinguish them, you are not to train without myself or my tutors overseeing you. Understood?"

"I understand."

"And...?"

I sighed. I recalled Liao getting away with that when Azula was eleven. Once. "And I shall obey."

She nodded her head once in acceptance of what we both knew was a binding promise. "Despite the lamentable finale, I am pleased to see that you have regained enough form that you can benefit from sparring with me. You seem to have picked up some bad habits in the army. I will not allow recklessness to kill you."

"Will you make a pact with me to the same effect?" I asked.

Azula stared at me. "You think I would make such an error?"

"Then it is a small thing for me to ask, my princess. I do not have your permission to die and I wish merely be sure that I am not placed in the hateful state of outliving you."

"You make it very difficult to be angry with you," she told me and then left.

She had managed it before quite well, I thought.

.oOo.

Azula was her father's daughter. She wanted his approval more than anything – with perhaps one exception. What he desired, she desired. What he despised, she despised. And as I have mentioned, Ozai was not delighted at the marital arrangements that his father had made for his daughter.

It would not have been surprising for Liao to visit the home islands from a fairly early age. The children of the highborn would often be raised there while their one or both of their parents were about the Fire Lord's business and there were schools, ranging from near-monastic conditions to establishments like the Fire Nation Academy for Girls which Azula attended, that catered to children as young as six or seven.

While Ozai could hardly have prevented Liao from attending one – he was at the time only a spare in case his brother Prince Iroh was for some reason unable to succeed Fire Lord Azulon – he was at least able to avoid encouraging it. Quite commonly when a marriage was arranged young, one or the other child would spend a considerable amount of time fostered with the other's family. Neither Liao's father nor his grandfather chose to raise the matter, neither being particularly close to Prince Ozai. What Azulon thought, I do not have the least notion.

It was three years after the death of Azulon that Liao first set foot on the home islands. It would be fair to say that Ozai's reign had been turbulent. His unexpected accession to power could have led to civil war if Iroh had pushed the issue. The fact that Lady Ursa was simply gone – and no one was talking about what happened there, which was a damn shame because it would be one hell of a bargaining counter with Zuko – didn't help him much. Liao suspected and I think he was right, that one reason for resuming active campaigning against the Earth Kingdom, rather than rebuilding after the losses suffered at Ba Sing Se, was to pull the support of the war faction within the Fire Lord's court behind Ozai. And then Zuko opened his big fat mouth...

Okay, let's get one thing straight. Sure, what he objected to was a harsh strategy that would have left a lot of young Fire Nation soldiers dead. But so are most strategies in war. I'm not much of a chess player, but if you're sacrificing a pawn so that your rook can grab a bishop or a knight, then that's not such a bad deal. And a general is expected to make that sort of tough decision. The man involved owed those recruits respect but he didn't owe them a peaceful time of it. They were in the army and that was one of the risks inherent in that.

And breaking down and crying when he was faced by his father? I'd show sympathy for a child but when he spoke up at that meeting, Zuko made it clear that he wasn't in the kiddie pool any more. He voiced his opposition as an adult, and he faced adult consequences. That may not be nice, but it is not unfair. Ozai went too far by mutilating him, but the exile? After Zuko disgraced himself in front of the whole court, he was finished.

But anyway. Ozai's eldest child being publically burned and sent in exile sent a lot of messages and one of them was that his situation was not stabilising. Iroh going with Zuko sent another. In theory, the Fire Lord was an absolute monarch but the trouble with theory is that it's only in theory that theory is the same as in practise. If you follow what I'm saying there. Some visible support from the great General Quan helped with that, which took the form of a very public visible visit by the general's grandson to his fiancée, the Fire Lord's daughter.

Liao was thirteen, not quite a year younger than Zuko. Azula was eleven. They were both under strict orders to behave. Mostly they did. In public anyway.

Does anyone really believe that Azula couldn't make her feelings known without drawing adult attention? She'd been a little brat before Ursa vanished and had run almost wild since then. Liao was almost Zuko's age, more or less as incompetent a firebender (compared to her, anyway) and there had been whispering before he arrived that if he turned out alright then maybe it would be Fire Lord Liao and Azula could be his consort. As far as she was concerned, he'd stepped right into Zuko's shoes as target/plaything and she'd had weeks of pent up energy to unleash.

The first few days were... interesting.

I'm not saying that no one else noticed. But it was 'not the place of servants to interfere with the affairs of their betters' and if that doesn't sound unhealthy to you then it does to me. And Ozai thought that it was just grand. What was Liao to do? Whine that he was getting bullied by a girl two years younger than him?

Eventually, he started to fight back. And god love the boy, he wasn't half as subtle as Azula. Oh, he didn't get physical. That was right out. For one thing, even at that age she would have thrashed him. No, it was low war – annoy, irritate, humiliate. And Liao just wasn't as precise or as careful as Azula was being. Sooner or later word would get out and I presume that Ozai, having established himself as a stern and disciplinarian parent wasn't about to let that happen.

His solution was fairly straightforward. The loving couple – you remember how old I said they were? – would embark on a romantic cruise together. There, out of the sight of the public, Azula could finish driving Liao away from her. Or possibly stab him in the back and throw him overboard.

Well it really wasn't his fault that the outcome wasn't what he expected. If anyone is to blame – well, whatever spirits pay attention to the weather really. The stormy season seemed over when we set out, but apparently no one had told La or Govad. (1)

They were heading south and east when a northerly storm blew down on us. It had been a fairly mild storm season but clearly Govad was making up for lost time. The crew bundled everyone under the deck, made the ship as waterproof as they possibly could and tried to steam clear. And the La decided to get in on the action – not personally, thankfully. Water flooded several of the coal bunkers and despite everything, managed to put out the fires – right when the captain was trying to get the ship clear of an island.

An island might sound nice – they don't sink, for one thing – but in a storm it's the last thing a ship wants to get close to. Out in deep water there isn't anything to run into. Shallows are more dangerous, and with heavy waves the depth beneath the keel of a ship can change unpredictably from moment to moment.

When it was clear that avoiding the island wasn't an option, the Captain called both children out of their respective rooms (and in Liao's case where he'd been making very close friends with a bucket), thrust them into a small steamboat along with two of the strongest swimmers aboard and ordered the sailors to get us ashore at any cost.

No one ever saw the ship again.

.oOo.

Liao and Azula barely made it to the island alive. A wave picked up the steamboat a few hundred yards from the shore and dashed it against the rocks, scattering the two children and the sailors. One of the sailors washed up ashore the next day, his head stoved in. Again, no idea what happened to the other one. Quite possibly dragged out to sea by the currents. I don't care how strong a swimmer he was, I doubt a waterbender could have stayed above water in a sea that rough much less made it to land.

The next thing Liao remembered was clinging to one of the rocks, one hand wrapped around Azula's waist. How they wound up there I have no clue and nor did he. Azula, typically, will not discuss those few minutes. I take that to mean that she's ashamed, either of being afraid or of the fact that she broke her leg when the boat came apart. I can't complain about her obsession with perfection under other circumstances, but that's taking it a bit far in my humble opinion.

There was no way to do anything but try to stay above the waves as they dashed against the rocks. If the storm hadn't moved off or died down (hard to tell from their perspective) then the two of them would have been swept away. For that matter, I suspect had the storm died down at night they would have died of exposure on that rock. Fortunately, however, when the clouds parted they were under sunlight, enough to dry them out and also bolstering their chi. The latter might have had most impact since Liao was bone tired by that point, and Azula was already in shock from her injury.

In any case, they woke to sunlight and to being alive, if stranded a not impossible distance from the shore, to which Liao managed to convey Azula on his second attempt. Let's not talk about the first. Blame, from my perspective, was about even, and they were young. Having just survived a near death experience it would be unreasonable for the two of them to have realised that they were a long way from being out of danger.

Liao telling Azula to get her own damn fruit from the peach tree when she tried to order him around like a servant was petty and childish. Also a sign that he hadn't quite grasped her essential nature. Broken leg or no, Azula was capable of climbing the tree. Getting down? Not so much. She was, after all, only eleven and a broken leg made jumping a very bad idea.

Meanwhile, Liao had left her to her own devices while he searched through the driftwood for anything salvageable. Fortunately, the steamboat had had a small carpentry kit in a wooden box light enough to float. Not much of a kit, but it at least left him with a decent knife and a small saw. He was initially amused to find her treed when he returned to their landing spot, a feeling she curbed by smacking him around the head with a peach..

The turning point in their relationship was not – at least in Liao's opinion – when he climbed up the tree and then carried her down anyway. She had, after all, been pelting him with peaches as he climbed and almost strangled him on the way down. It wasn't until he proposed cutting down the tree for firewood – the driftwood was still too soaked for use – that Azula warmed up to him.

And so it was that they managed to finish the day with a fire and an ample supply of peaches to feed them for the next few days. Imagine, if you will, the two of them eating peaches next to a campfire on a beach as the sun sets over the sea. It's a nice image and it's not as if there was a blanket for them to fight over.

There are a great many stories told – and no small number of propaganda scrolls detailing the childish adventures to follow. They're lovely fables – Azula is particularly fond of the one that claims we went their intentionally to conquer an Airbender island (we in the same island chain as the Southern Air Temple), although it made Liao cringe – but that's all that they are. Looking back with my great maturity, the two of them learned to co-operate because otherwise they might wind up going hungry and having accomplished this survived on a diet of peaches (from trees seeded from a long abandoned orchard) and roast flying Lemur (2) until a passing patrol ship spotted the smoke of their cooking fire and rescued them.

.oOo.

I wasn't fit for training the following day, but I was sufficiently recovered to sit in on a planning session for how to deal with Zuko. Oh, and Iroh. As if the Dragon of the West was a puling afterthought.

"Have either of you ever seen Prince Iroh firebending?"

Li looked at Lo. And vice versa. No reply. Bitches. Azula simply looked irritated.

"Assuming for the moment that he is in full fighting form, which may or may not be the case, we're talking about a firebender who was notoriously strong and clever. Someone who was a very serious contender to sit on the dragon throne." I clasped my hands behind my back. "Let's assume, in the nature of a worst case scenario, that he is as capable as the Fire Lord. How many of the Royal Procession do you estimate it would take to restrain him?"

"My uncle is an old fool."

"Your uncle was the Dragon of the West. Fighting an old dragon might win you respect, but don't think you'll get it done without a scar to tell the tale." I raked my hands through my hair. Iroh wasn't even all that old, strictly. Azulon had been pushing his nineties when he died, and that was not a natural death. Sozin had been almost that old when Roku died and he hadn't just been active at the beginning of the war, he had personally led the assault upon one of the Air Temples twelve years later. I'd confirmed that in scrolls from the palace library and while that might be exaggerated for propaganda purposes, it's likely that he really was there and did get his hands a little dirty. Possibly along with his dragon. "Azula, I don't want to lose you to recklessness either."

She sighed and then turned to her tutors. "You didn't answer my fiancé's question. How skilled was my uncle?"

There was enough delay before they answered that I knew Azula wasn't going to like it. "Your highness, while he was not the prodigy that you are, his longer experience will make him a challenging opponent for you."

"Can we rely upon the soldiers to keep him busy while her highness deals with her wayward brother?" I already knew the answer was no. I'm sure everyone else at the table knew that as well. There was a long and uncomfortable pause. "I'm only a junior officer, but that suggests that there are still a few options. Firstly, leave the soldiers to handle Prince Zuko while my fiancée deals with Iroh personally." Azula might win the fight – she'd managed to drop Iroh once, as I recalled events, albeit with a surprise attack.

"Secondly, split them up and subdue them separately." And hope that one of them didn't clue in before we were done with the other. "Or try to avoid a fight in the first place. From a certain perspective, your father's orders could constitute an invitation for them to return home willingly."

Azula mused over this for a moment and then smiled at me. "You're trying to be devious for me. That's terribly sweet of you."

Sarcasm is one of those things I have trouble with. Not using it as such, but recognising it. Call it a character flaw. So when I say that I really think she was being serious, don't put too much weight on it. Although... "I should stick with what I'm good at, huh."

"No, no," she said airily. "I approve of you stretching your capabilities as long as you don't abandon your existing strengths. But for now, why don't you just accept that I know my uncle better than you do?"

What answer could I make? I'd just been fondly put in my place, a reminder that however much Azula might like me, there were lines I should not cross. "Well if I keep learning from the mistress then someday I may only be a step or two behind you, not a quarter mile," I said self-depreciatingly and sat back to exercise some neutral jin: waiting and listening as the three of them discussed how to entrap the two out of favour members of the royal family.

A subtle degree of tension had left Azula's shoulders when I accepted her rebuke. It was only afterwards that I realised that she may have feared – yes, feared – that she would drive me away. I could imagine Zuko storming off in a sulk after being politely told that the adults were talking and he should shut up. Standing by her regardless, seemed to have scored a couple of points back that I might otherwise have lost by disagreeing with her. Something to remember as I sipped on my tea and hid a grimace. I've never been fond of tea but with Azula as my nurse I would take my medicine and like it. Or, as the saying goes, else.

.oOo.

Among my other sterling qualities I have something of a low boredom threshold. I'm sure listening to the three women's plotting would be somewhat interesting, but since I already had a decent general idea what Azula was going to do and could expect to be fully briefed before anything happened, I instead turned my attention to a scroll I hadn't finished reading earlier in the day.

I hadn't had time to turn the palace library upside down the way I wanted to – and the use of scrolls made it considerably harder to simply browse through a shelf looking for promising looking books – you can hardly check the spines for the titles and backcover blurbs were also out of the question. Fortunately the librarian was an almost perfect example of the stereotypical roles: he might not have left the library long enough to notice Ozai's rise to the throne, but he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the thousands of scrolls there.

And that was an unpleasant realisation for me: thousands. Not tens of thousands, which would be a conservative estimate for a good library by my standards. And this was the local equivalent of the British Library, which has books by the million. Granted, the library isn't the same as the archives, which have just about all official records since the establishment of the Fire Sages – more or less the start of recorded history for the Fire Nation – but it came as something of a shock to the system. I think there were fewer scrolls than I had had books back before I wound up here.

Anyway, enough about my bibliophile horror. In addition to pointing me to a few scrolls that had answered questions I wanted to settle with some urgency, the helpful old fellow had kindly told me that I need not bother looking through two chests as they held duplicates of the scrolls on the main shelves (which were more like wine racks, for reasons that I hope are obvious). Apparently the royal library occasionally received donations – there had been a fashion a few years ago for people to leave their private libraries (that might come to a dozen or more scrolls!) to the throne – and this yielded the odd redundancy.

So I shamelessly grabbed anything interesting from the chests on the basis that it was unlikely to be missed. Mostly I took history texts – including a very interesting 'official history of the Fire Nation' that had allegedly been dictated by Fire Lords Sozin himself around a decade before the start of the war – but there was also a scroll on natural philosophy that looked as if it had potential uses and one of the many, many copies of the Fire Nation army's drillbook. I mean, did people think that the Fire Lord wouldn't have copies already?

The history was interesting – as much as a study of the evolution of official propaganda through the course of the war as in the actual events before and after. Sozin's, with a hundred years of perspective and actually knowing what happened behind the scenes, was actually quite creepy. Unfortunately the traditional 'high' style used for writing it was rather opaque and their reliability was slightly undermined by the fact that I knew some of it was wrong and that some of the earlier propaganda was rather clumsy – Sozin had gloriously purged the Northern Air Temple at least three times that I could see, suggesting that the battles there may have been somewhat less crushing victories than the scrolls suggested.

Still, reading between the lines filled the time and... was that an ominous silence that I heard?

"Are we boring you?" There was a lot of ice in Azula's voice.

"You? Never. The conversation? Yes. It is." I looked up from the scroll and met her angry eyes. "If I was expected to contribute then there would be a point to listening. As is, the pertinent points for me will be my orders when you give me them. And rather than sitting here like a brainless peasant I choose to improve my mind until that time comes."

Li - previous discussion had identified which was which for the moment – snorted. "Is the lieutenant sulking because he isn't receiving attention?"

I didn't spare her a second glance. "If you want to have your fingers licked at every instant, my princess, then I'll buy you a puppy when we get to shore. Or a courtier. It amounts to the same thing. But I don't think you want that sort of weakling at your side. Or am I wrong?"

The gleam in her eyes was no longer angry but rather... hungry? "No," she assured me, her breath seeming to catch. "I want your strength, your fire."

Lo coughed discreetly and Azula rounded on her. "You can go."

"Your father -"

"Yes. _My_ father, Lo," Azula hissed. "Do you think he would send me after my erring brother if he did not trust my judgement?"

The two old woman exchanged glances and then rose to their feet. "Then we shall trust your conduct will remain as perfect as your firebending."

"Not a hair out of place," Li added to her sister's words as they walked out of the room.

I waited until the door closed behind them before giving Azula a look, lowering my eyelids slightly as I smirked. "Not a hair? Sounds like a challenge."

She gave me a speculative look and pursed her lips thoughtfully. Seemed to be a happy thought, whatever it was. "Oh?"

I set the scroll aside and rose to my feet. "Oh yes. A test, if you will. We've both grown, after all. Both ourselves..."

"And our fire," she whispered hungrily.

"We aren't children anymore."

"I noticed that."

I remembered her lips against mine after I had first woken. "And those fires, they could blaze out of control. Destroying both of us."

"Only we allow that." She stepped forwards and her hands touched my chest as she had then, the only difference being the thin shirt that covered my bandages. "It is our fire, Liao. We rule it, it does not rule us."

I closed my arms around Azula, resisting the urge to pull off her hair ornament and send her hair cascading down her back. "Our control then, must be precise. To accomplish all that we desire. But never to consume us." Instead I ran my fingers down her bare neck, tracing her spine. Azula arched her back, sliding her hands up to my shoulders as she drew closer.

My left hand traced down her back, over the backplate of her armour and I decided at the last minute that it would be best not to push my luck. Okay, I lost my nerve, okay?

Not that it mattered because Azula started nuzzling at my neck, something that – pressed as close as we were – she had to be aware that I was enjoying up until she took a little nip at the flesh. Good lord that girl has sharp teeth! It rather spoilt the moment for me.

With a yelp of pain I jerked my neck away, although I kept my hands around her. "Azula!"

A lock of hair had come loose from her hairpiece, falling across her face. It didn't hide her startled look, which switched to concern. Azula reached out and touched the bite, the finger coming back bloodstained.

"A little much there," I told her ruefully and dabbed at the injury, which fortunately seemed to be superficial. God help me if she'd decided to take her little nip out of my jugular.

.oOo.

(1) Ah... I don't recall him being mentioned much in the show. Or if he was mentioned at all. If it comes up again, he's a spirit mostly associated with the wind. Airbenders would know more, but talking to Aang about spirituality makes my teeth hurt.

(2) This would be another of those stories I am never sharing with Aang.


	3. Chapter 3

"What are you doing here?" Zuko's voice was tight as he addressed his sister. The scar was ugly enough, but I was more concerned by the look in his eyes. Iroh wasn't looking cheerful either, reinforcing my impression that he was dangerous and not just as a firebender, but Zuko's instant suspicion was just one step short of hatred. I suppose I should be comforted that he wasn't looking at me like that.

We'd been sitting on either side of a window when the other pair entered the small building. This part of the local colony was almost a resort. Very pretty. Walking from the bright sunshine outside, it wasn't entirely surprising that neither man appeared to have noticed us until now.

Azula played innocent, picking up one of Iroh's keepsake shells to examine rather than facing her brother. "In my country we exchange a pleasent hello, before asking questions." The last three words coincided with her returning her attention to Zuko and the vitriol in her gaze was matched by an increasing coldness in her voice. She uncrossed her legs and walked over to him. "Have you become uncivilized so soon, Zuzu?"

"Don't call me that!"

Iroh kept better control of himself, bowing slightly. "To what do we owe this honour?" A flicker of his eyes suggested he was keeping tabs on me as well.

"Hmm. Must be a family trait. Both of you so quick to get to the point." She closed her fingers and the delicate seashell fragmented. Iroh looked shocked and then annoyed. Great. Just perfect. Piss him off, why don't you? At least he was focusing on Azula again. "Father sent me with a message." I'd advised her to get that out front straightaway. Not even Zuko was foolish enough to believe that his sister wanted him to return from exile, so indicating that it wasn't her preference would provide verisimilitude. She looked away. "He wants you home. Family is suddenly very important to him. He's heard rumours of plans to overthrow him, treacherous plots. Family are the only ones you can really trust."

I don't think Zuko had heard a single thing after the word home. The one eye I could see widened – I'm sure the other one did too, as far as the scar tissue allowed. He looked younger without the scowl. For a moment I felt the temptation to pin him down, shave off the topknot and paint an arrow on his scalp. Failing to get an audible reaction she turned her head back towards him. "Did you hear me? You sh-"

I coughed discreetly. "Azula, give him a moment. I'm sure he's just surprised." I lowered my voice slightly. "Who wouldn't be."

"Hmm. Perhaps you're right." She ostentatiously ignored the fact her brother's moment of absorption. "Ah, the two of you haven't met before, have you? This is my brother, Zuko. And Zuzu? This is my fiancé, Liao."

"Don't call me that," he mumbled reflexively and then he blinked. "Fiancé?"

"Yes, the man I'm going to marry someday. Surely you do remember that grandfather arranged a marriage for me." And not for you, was the implication. A touch unfair of course. I'm quite certain Azulon would have, if he'd lived longer.

Iroh smiled politely. "I thought I saw a resemblance to the great General Quan. How is your father?"

I bowed slightly. "Dead, sir. Just a few weeks ago."

"I am sorry to hear that. He was a fine officer and a good man."

I nodded solemnly. "He died doing his duty, general. And it was a clean death as such things go." Stoicism seemed like the best course of action. It was hard to muster a great deal of emotion now. I'm hardly immune to grief, but it was hard to muster for a man I had never actually met.

Having gathered his wits during the conversation, Zuko stepped over to the window and rested his hands on the wooden sill. "Father... wants me back?" He sounded as if he was afraid to believe it.

I looked over at Azula and she smirked as if to say 'it's your plan, you do this'. I squared my shoulders. "No, he doesn't."

"What!? But –"

"He wants your uncle to be visible support for him. As Azula said, there have signs of disloyalty. Your ship being destroyed would be one of them. However out of favour you might be, you are part of the royal family. An attack upon you is an attack on your father's authority. You are being allowed to return home because the Fire Lord does not wish to ask that General Iroh choose between obedience or your protection." I paused, trying to ignore Azula's predatory smile and the way Zuko's shoulders slumped. "With that said... you have, as it were, a second chance. If you can impress him, show that you've changed, that you're worthy of his respect... well. Who can say?"

'Not many get a second chance. Don't screw it up.' Who had written those words for me to read?

Zuko looked torn between tears, relief and challenging me to an Agni Kai. Given his past experience I thought that the latter was the most likely. "You think I'll fail, don't you?"

I shrugged. "Like most things, your highness, it's in your hands. If you have the strength to be the next Fire Lord then good for you. If you don't, then I won't weep for you. Now, are you done posturing or shall I send you to your room while the adults are talking?"

"You –!" Zuko looked ready to do something I'd regret. Azula seemed eager to step in if her brother threw the first punch.

"That's enough, nephew." Iroh caught hold of Zuko's shoulder. "As you, Liao, I expected better from the son of my old friend."

"Perhaps we should give my brother to take this in," Azula suggested in a conciliatory tone. "I'll come call on you both tomorrow." She gestured sharply with her fingers towards me and started towards the door. I obediently followed. Quite honestly, I'd be more than happy to let his temper cool – as first impressions go, I think I'd managed to anger him.

Of course, there aren't many things that don't at this point in his life.

"That was very good," Azula said. "The scar suits him." Her eyes narrowed with the suddenness that I had come to recognise, if not be comfortable with. My first thought had been that her mood was changeable, this princess of mine. My second that she was constant in this, mad all of the time. "Suggesting he would be the Fire Lord was too much though. You should know better."

I shook my head. "He's said to talk about honour, but it's not what I'd call that. I baited him with what he'd understand, my princess. We both know that he'd have to surpass you to achieve that. Do you really think it likely?"

She just looked at me for a moment and it took everything I had not to be the first to look away.

Likely or not, that was what she feared. More than death, disgrace. To see Zuko elevated above her. To lose value in her father's eyes. And yet, despite Ozai's dislike for me, she was actively pursuing our courtship. That might not put her in line for a sainthood, but it meant that she wasn't a devil either.

"I won't do it again then."

"Good." She looked around the colony as we approached her palanquin. "Weren't you going to buy me a puppy?"

"Of course, my princess. How foolish of me to forget. I'll see to it immediately."

.oOo.

There wasn't exactly a pet shop in the town – the economy wasn't operating at quite that level and even if there was, I couldn't exactly check the phone book to find one. Fortunately, I had access to the next best thing: there was a garrison compound outside the town and where you find soldiers – for a given value of soldier, admittedly – you find sergeants. You do in the Fire Nation, anyway, I don't know about the Earth Kingdom. Can't recall any offhand and Liao had his prejudices when it came to the Earth Kingdom army.

Sergeants, if they're any good, have two very important functions: turning inexperienced young men into soldiers and keeping inexperienced young officers from getting themselves and their commands killed. So the sergeant in charge of the garrison was quite accustomed to young, well born men coming to them with problems that their upbringing hadn't quite prepared them for.

"Not a problem, Lieutenant," that bearded worthy assured me. "I know two farms around here with bitches that littered recently. What do you want one for?"

I spread my hands wide, as if in supplication to the heavens. "A girl, what else?"

The sergeant frowned. "I don't know about that," he mumbled. "Is she highborn? The litters I was thinking of are sheep-dogs."

"Oh that'll do perfectly."

He gave me the sort of look that aged sergeants give dumb young officers that they aren't allowed to clip around the ear. Liao had seen it around a million times in the last couple of years. "Sir, they aren't exactly pets. These are working animals."

"Excellent, she's probably never seen one before then." I smiled confidently. "Trust me, sergeant. The lady in question is very special and if I give her one of those yapping pests kept as pets she'll have it spit-roasted after the second day. Sheer novelty will have her keep it around long enough to grow fond of it, and if it's unusual then it'll be a point of pride for her."

"If you say so, sir." Poor fellow was probably delighted that I wasn't his lieutenant to mould. It crossed my mind to think twice before explaining any innovations I might come up with. Talking about a printing press would probably have most people assume I was spirit-touched (1).

And so, when Iroh found me walking through the marketplace, I had a basket containing a white, woolly (2) mammal in one hand. That was worth a confused look from him, clearly it didn't fit with the first impression he had of me. "An interesting purchase, Lieutenant Liao."

"Truth being stranger than fiction, it's a gift for my beloved." The stall I was at had some genuinely decent leather, much to my surprise. Mind you, there had to be something fairly stiff inside those damn shoulder boards that Fire Nation fashion dictated.

I saw absolutely no sign of suspicion on his face. He hadn't masked his feelings this well around Azula. Then again, he probably considered her a known quantity. It might take her swatting him down with lightning before Iroh learned better than to see her as his little niece, however sharp her teeth. "Ah? I don't recall my niece being very fond of animals."

Well she'd quite liked the flying lemurs. Rare, whereas I preferred my meat well done. "It surprised me too. Still, if that's what she wants..." And there was the message: if it comes to a fight between to the siblings, I've picked my side.

"I am glad to find that Azula's fiancé cares for her so. I do recall that she was less than reconciled to the arrangement when I was last at home. But then, that was before your famous adventure with her." I was struck with a sudden curiousity as to what would have happened if the ship that found Azula and Liao on their castaway island had been Zuko's. Mayhem, probably. "But that does not excuse your rudeness to my nephew."

"General –" A description that caused the stall keeper to start and re-examine Iroh. "- if I'd patted him on the head and assured him that everything would be alright, then I'd be insulting his intelligence. Worse, I'm seriously concerned that he might have believed me if I told him that."

"Kicking a desperate man is not virtuous." Iroh nodded very slightly to indicate that we should, perhaps, walk as we talked. Looking at the stall-keeper, I believe he had a point.

I turned my head to face him while we made our way through the crowd. "You assume that I have the time or inclination to get him past his issues –" I raised my free hand to gesture for forbearance. "- which I do realise I can hardly claim to understand. Unfortunately this brief period you've had to recover is probably all you're going to get. Quite honestly I have my doubts about a peaceful voyage with those two aboard. I have _no_ doubts that there will be little peace in the capital."

Iroh looked amused by that. "I see. I must say you don't seem besotted by my niece, to say such a thing."

I laughed. "If you're thinking of that idealistic state where one believes that the one they love has no fault or flaw, then I have to tell you that in my experience such a paragon does not exist... and would be quite boring as well. I'm very happy with Azula the way that she is. I couldn't say that honestly without knowing her ways."

"Then you enjoy living dangerously." Iroh's smile slipped very slightly. "I doubt that the sheep-dog pup is precisely what she asked you for."

"If paragons don't exist then I can hardly claim to be one." I felt the corner of my lips curve with mischief.

The old man at my side gave me a look that should have made a boy Liao's age wince. I just kept grinning. "Do you like tea?" he asked at last.

"I've been prescribed jasmine or ginseng tea at every meal for medical reasons," I told him, the smile falling from my face. "Azula pours enough of it down me to float a battleship."

"Ah, well you've probably just not had the right cup yet," he assured me. "Come back to our rooms and I'll show you how it should be done. It'll give you a chance to make a better impression on Zuko. You're going to be brothers after all."

Oh great. Third degree over tea with Zuko. This was going to be pleasant. "How can I refuse such a graceful invitation." I tapped the basket handle with one finger. "However, I really should deliver Azula's gift first. Perhaps I could visit a little later in the day?"

Iroh nodded. "I shall look forward to it."

We parted ways at the edge of the market although I was tempted to backstep a little and pick up a rather impressive looking cloak. In the end, the sheer impracticality of wearing something long and flapping that could easily be set on fire persuaded me that it would not be wise. I did invest in a nice sturdy bowl though, and a couple of fireworks that had been soaked before they were used at a festival the previous month. The storekeeper assured me that they had dried out and would be perfectly usable again, but I had my doubts.

.oOo.

Azula was practising when I got back, just the forms. I guess she didn't want to wear herself down if the big day was going to be tomorrow. Her and Zuko, final showdown. And she intended to be just as perfect about it as she was in training. Interrupting that would be a bad idea.

Instead I went below decks (the pagoda structure might look ornamental but it was actually all business as far as the ship went) to the passenger quarters and entrusted basket and puppy to one of Azula's servants to look after until the princess was done playing on deck. Another quick detour to my quarters and I was ready to go.

Checking my appearance in the mirror – yes, I'm a little vain, so what? – I saw a broadshouldered young man wearing red and black, dark hair up in a top-knot. Picking up the Ba Chui racked near the door I worked through a slow, careful kata. So this was me now. Liao Quan. Soldier. Firebender. Fiancé to Azula.

The man in the mirror didn't seem to share my fears. Hopefully he would have courage enough for both of us.

I replaced the weapon in its place. It would be more than a mite unfriendly for me to turn up at General Iroh's armed with anything more than my wits. If I wasn't a bender, I could probably justify a dagger but firebenders were never considered unarmed.

Hmm. I had a sudden appreciation for Ty Lee, along with a desire not to get on whatever passed for her bad side. To a firebender, her particular talents made her almost the Black Sun incarnate. Decent armour might protect some of the critical pressure points, but blocking them all would mean removing your own mobility as surely as giving her free rein.

I'd only been bending fire for a week, but the thought of being without it hit me on a level that wasn't all Liao.

Firebending wasn't just something that you did. It was part of who you are. Part of who I am. Funny. I'd never have pegged that as my element. Water maybe. Or earth. I considered for a moment Ozai's likely reaction to finding out his favoured child was engaged to marry a 'lesser bender' and winced. Probably for the best.

Unfortunately that was the man who would choose to end the war by killing everything in his path with fire. And it was the suggestion of my lovely, lethal princess. "Your heart is as hard as stone or mahogany. That's why I'm in such exquisite agony. My soul is on fire, it's aflame with desire, which is why I perspire when we tango..." Hmm. I was fairly sure that Azula didn't dance. Daddy dearest wouldn't approve. Ah well, not as if I was prone to it myself, much less the tango.

.oOo.

"What are you doing here!?"

I was beginning to wonder if Zuko had a limited vocabulary. Then again, it was a reasonable enquiry and he wasn't quite as rude about it as he was with his sister. "I was invited, your highness."

It didn't take him more than a second to figure out the most likely culprit. "Uncle!"

"If he's going to marry your sister then you should get to know him, Prince Zuko." Iroh was mixing tea leaves carefully into a steaming kettle. The absence of a fire simply highlighted the versatility of bending.

"The two of them deserve each other." Somehow that didn't sound as if he intended it as a compliment.

I smiled. "It's good to know that I have your approval. Now if I could only win your father over." He gave me a sceptical look. "You spent three years hunting someone that most of the Fire Nation didn't believe still existed. I spent two on the frontlines to keep me away from your sister. If I was paranoid, I might wonder who arranged the ambush that killed my father. Of course, some questions just aren't safe to ask."

"You can't possibly think my father would..."

Loyal even now? Zuko has the virtues of his vices, that's for sure. Not a surprise, but impressive in person. "There's an old story. I don't recall the names involved but there was a powerful lord. He'd arranged for one of his loyal supporters to take a powerful political office, reasoning that by extension it would allow him to suborn the position. That's not quite how it worked out, you see, the man he chose happened to have a conscience and executed his office dutifully and without favour to anyone. Quite frustrating for the lord, who made a chance comment: 'Who will rid me of this troublesome clerk?'." I paused to let that sink in. "Four of his retainers took that a hint and the poor fellow had his brains dashed out fairly publically. They thought that they would be rewarded, it seems. What they accomplished of course was to scandalise all the lord's neighbours and make him a pariah. One might imagine that he was less than totally grateful." There was an awkward silence and I smiled. "Then again, sometimes it's just convenient for a ruler to have scapegoats."

Iroh placed a cup of tea in front of me. "That's a very cynical view for such a young man."

"It's a rare thing to get out of politics alive," I pointed out. "Your own accomplishment aside. They only thing I'd gladly go to the capital for is Azula. As she isn't there right I'm not having to make that sacrifice right now."

The younger of the two soon-to-be-former princes scoffed. "If you think Azula will stay away from my father for your sake then you're dreaming. She'll chew you up" (I rubbed my neck before I realised what I was betraying) "And destroy everything you care about before she discards you."

"I appreciate the warning, your highness, in the spirit in which it was given and I will not allow her to destroy herself. However, the word you seem to have forgotten from my comment was 'gladly'. And while as her brother there are some things I'm sure you'd rather not hear about our relationship -" His face went crimson and Iroh coughed into his tea incredulously. "- I assure you that I have no regrets about it."

"That's good to hear," Iroh managed, tears in his eyes that might have been due to tea going down the wrong way or possibly the look on his nephew's face. "How's the tea, by the way?"

I sipped at it. It was... It was tea. Meh. "Well since I seem to have made a habit of impolite degrees of truth, I really can't tell the difference. Sorry." Zuko bristled at that and I gave him a sceptical look. "It's not a taste I've cultivated. Still, I'm told it's good for my health." I drained the cup. "Thank you."

"Tea is very good for you." Iroh offered me a refill. Possibly there was some English in his ancestry. Wasn't that the traditional remedy for anything: a cup of hot, sweet tea?

"You don't know her." Zuko glared into the middle distance, fists clenching where they rested on his thighs. "You don't know Azula half as well as you think you do."

"You're right, I don't." He seemed surprised by my ready agreement. "And she doesn't know me as well as she thinks. It's going to make things interesting and I like things when they're interesting. Besides, how much have you spoken to her for the last few years? Look, I don't think we're going to agree here. For now, why don't we just agree to disagree about your sister?"

Zuko shook his head, not in disagreement I realised, but in resignation. "Fine. Just don't say I didn't warn you," he told me in a disgusted voice and lifted his own cup of tea.

I waited until he was sipping before I asked: "So, tell me about the Avatar?"

Heh. What a waste of Iroh's tea. I'd have to have my shirt cleaned though. It had Zuko-spit all over it. Now let me guess... "Why do you want to know about the Avatar!?"

"It's good to know that you have nice healthy lungs." I looked over at Iroh. "Mind you the colour of his face might indicate potential for heart problems. Do you have any tea that's good for that?"

He nodded wisely. "Oolong. Oolong is very good for that." His face brightened. "I have some here, I'll make some for you right away, Prince Zuko."

"I don't need tea, uncle. I need answers."

I sighed heavily. "Look, I realise that you don't have to be polite to me. Really, you don't. But I do hope that if you carry on like that once you're home then you're just going to get yourself exiled again. I'd really hate for that to happen, so you might want to work on that."

I really expected another explosion, but Zuko surprised me by showing some maturity. Maybe his later potential wasn't as deeply buried as I had thought. "Perhaps I was too abrupt." Not an apology, but more than I had expected from him. He looked away for a moment. "I was enquiring why you wanted to know about the Avatar so I could provide you the most relevant information to your interests."

"Of course, your highness. I suppose my main concern is the nature of the threat he poses. I am, after all, a soldier and you and General Iroh were have seen him clash with Fire Nation soldiers several times. My understanding is that he is primarily an airbender?"

"He's a master airbender," Zuko corrected me. "And from what I saw at the North Pole, he's mastering waterbending rapidly."

"I see. Well, I believe that he was already travelling with a waterbender, so that isn't too surprising. Still, that's worryingly soon. If I recall correctly, most Avatars took a decade or more to master all four elements. But this one – do we have a name for him?"

"Aang."

"Ah. Thank you. Well this Aang seems to be advancing much more rapidly than I would have expected. I gather that he's actually younger than either of us, your highness?"

"He's still a child. Twelve, perhaps thirteen." Zuko's lips curled disdainfully. "He acts as if he's half that age."

"Well, I can't say that I didn't make any mistakes at that age myself..." I looked rather pointedly at Zuko's scar, causing colour to rise in his face again. "Still, he managed to travel from one end of the world to the other, despite the best efforts of some very capable people, and caused no end of trouble in the process. It would take more than just bending to do that. Maybe luck – I've been a soldier long enough to know it never hurts to have the spirits on your side, and he is the Avatar after all – or maybe he has more of a brain in his head than he lets on."

Zuko looked thoughtful for a moment and then shook his head. "That wouldn't be hard but trust me. There's nothing between his ears but empty air."

I looked doubtful. "Well, it would be foolish of me to ask your opinion and then ignore it," I conceded. "If it wasn't for the North Pole, I would have guessed we had a year or two before he was more than a nuisance, however fast he might learn. I take it that he _was_ responsible for that mess – beyond, uh, the less than brilliant strategy of Admiral Zhao?"

"I believe," Iroh advised, the teapot already steaming again under his ministrations, "That the Avatar joined himself to the Ocean Spirit in order to destroy our fleet."

I let my eyes widen and spilled some tea on my fingers. It should have been painfully hot, but instead it was merely uncomfortably warm. "Wait, when... when you say joined to the Ocean Spirit, you don't mean..."

They both nodded.

"And you fought him _how_ often? I'm surprised you're not dead."

"Well, that was a little more extreme his usual measures." Iroh passed Zuko a cup of tea. "Thus far the Avatar has always tried to escape my nephew, not to destroy him."

"Then I suppose he was less intimidated by Zhao – or perhaps more infuriated." I frowned, checking whether or not Liao had met the late Admiral. "I never met the man, but his reputation would lend itself more towards the latter."

That got a wry snort from Zuko. "If anything, his reputation was understated." He paused for a moment, probably reliving past clashes with Zhao. "It was an ugly way to die."

"The Avatar killed him?"

"No. Not the Avatar. We were fighting – he admitted that he'd conspired to have my ship blown up – and then the Ocean Spirit swept down and took him."

"Took him?" I stared at him. "What do you mean 'took him'?"

Iroh cleared his throat. "I believe that the Ocean Spirit took him into the spirit world, to punish him more severely than he could in this world. I doubt very much that anyone will ever see Zhao again."

"I... probably don't want to know what La was punishing him for, do I?"

"You are correct, Lieutenant Liao. Some things are best left unknown."

.oOo.

I wasn't entirely surprised that Zuko and Iroh decided to accompany me back to the ship. The timing of the events I recalled from the show was uncertain but I knew that they hadn't waited for Azula to make a follow up visit. And it made sense tactically for them not to adhere to her schedule.

Soldiers for the Royal Procession lined the pier like statues as we walked towards the ship. I couldn't see Iroh, as he was taking up the rear, but I could almost feel his fire focusing for battle. He suspected. No surprise there. Zuko, beside me, looked only ahead. At the ship. At Azula, standing at the head of the gangplank.

She was the same clothes as before and while they looked very official and impressive, they weren't particularly flattering. Baggy breeches are easy to move in, and the thick shoulder-piece provided decent protection, but they weren't exactly calculated to show off her figure. Ah well. My currently teenaged hormones had had plenty of opportunity to enjoy looking at her in less formal clothes as we travelled. A little denial of them might not be a bad thing. This really wasn't the moment to be drooling, it would have looked undignified as I stepped to my left and positioned myself opposite the ship's captain, framing the bottom of the gangway.

"Brother, Uncle." She spread her hands and bowed. "Welcome. I'm so glad that you decided to come." Clearly any welcome I received was going to be more private. And there was of course the risk that she was be mad at me over the sheep-dog.

They both returned the bow, Iroh more deeply than his nephew, as the imperial firebenders moved sharply and smoothly into two lines behind them.

The captain turned to look up at Azula. "Are we ready to depart, your highness?"

"Set our course for home, captain." She sounded genuinely happy about the prospect. In fact, she looked much more the young girl than the haughty princess at that moment. A mask? Probably. But equally, she had every reason to be happy. Getting her favourite chew-toy back.

Zuko looked misty-eyed. "Home," he whispered. Sorry kid.

"You heard the princess!" shouted the captain as he started up the gangway. "Raise the anchors. We're taking the prisoners home." Zuko was only a few steps behind him when he said that. Iroh, trailing, was just abreast of me.

Azula's eyes went wide with anger. Someone was going to die.

.oOo.

(1) Which is not a compliment. Think lunacy for comparison, although Sokka probably wouldn't appreciate the comparison.

(2) Yes, I know. It wasn't my first thought when I heard Sheep-Dog either.


	4. Chapter 4

"Your highness, I -"

It would have been the perfect moment to facepalm. Really. If I'd been surprised – no, to be fair I really was surprised. There was every probability that my presence would cause enough butterflies to eliminate that stupid error on the captain's part. But if I hadn't been aware of the possibility of him giving the game away, I might have yielded to the temptation.

Instead while he was stammering excuses and realisation was beginning to trickle through Zuko's brain I went for Iroh. What the hell, I wasn't likely to actually hurt the Dragon of the West, but I might as well make it look good.

About a second later, I was in the water and to this day I'm not entirely sure how it happened. Other, of course, that Iroh predictably brushed me aside with no difficulty whatsoever. And even from that modest height, hitting the water wasn't what you might call painless - I barely gathered my wits sufficiently to paddle out of the way of some of the Royal Procession joining me in aquatic adventures.

Floating in a harbour wasn't exactly the best place to watch the man work, but I can claim the rare distinction of having had a ringside seat to Iroh, son of Azulon, cleaning the clocks of some of Ozai's best. He didn't have Azula's razor-sharp precision although there were traces of it in his style. Instead it was almost like he had – in his experience – a map that led him from standing menaced by the lot of us and ended with us scattered and with little interest in resuming the fight. He just followed that map and got where he was going.

It was an impressive display and I'd wager it was well under a minute before Iroh was alone on the pier. "Zuko! Let's go!"

I could hear Azula's voice from the deck above, although between the water and the distance I couldn't make out her words. Iroh ran up onto the ship and I struck out towards the pier, grabbing the nearest firebender by the collar. "Get your asses up out of the water!"

The side of the pier wasn't smooth, although wet rock isn't exactly idea for hand and footholds. I kicked off my boots before scrambling up the side and had barely found my feet when lightning flashed. The sound of rocks tumbling from the cliffs below the colony was masked by the roll of thunder. I was running for the gangplank before recognition of the sound had been fully processed, taking a guilty pleasure in knocking the dripping captain back into the water when he didn't dodge fast enough. If the man had a brain he'd be running for the hills just as fast as Zuko and –

Iroh hit me harder this time. I'd have appreciated something with less impact, like a sledgehammer, I reflected as I performed a lovely parabolic arc towards the bow of the ship. The expression on Zuko's face suggested he was tempted to send a fireball after me, but with Iroh setting the pace he didn't have the opportunity. I must presume that he took his frustration out on the still disorganised Royal Procession, judging by their later bruises and singed condition.

Despite having the wind knocked out of me, there was enough of a fall to the water for me to turn the tumble into something like a dive and this time I hit it cleanly, plunging almost as deep as the ship's keel before I managed to kick my way back to the surface. My hair had almost escaped its clasp during my first dousing and it was now loose –the clasp is probably still somewhere at the bottom of the harbour.

Gasping for breath and glad that it was late enough in the day for the waters to be fairly warm I swam for the bow and the anchor chain, which would be the fastest way to get up onto the deck. And if Azula had been thrown overboard – likely, unless Iroh had developed a previously unseen vicious streak. I swam a bit faster.

Naturally, I had nothing to worry about. I rounded the bow and saw Azula already halfway up the chain. She looked down when she felt the chain move as I grabbed hold of it. "What happened to you?"

"Other than the obvious? Not much."

Reaching the top, she vaulted over the bulwark and a moment later I was able to do the same. There was no one on the deck except a couple of firebenders, presumably having fallen victim to Zuko at some point. Running to the rail we could see the remains of the Royal Procession, mostly trying to stay afloat, and in the distance Iroh and Zuko disappearing out of view at the far end of the pier.

Azula started what I recognised as the first movement to generate lightning. "Not when you're wet," I warned her absently, eyeing the landscape and relying on Liao's memories to pick out the most likely route that the two fugitives would take out of the town.

"You don't give me orders, Liao." I didn't have to look at her to know that her brow was lowered in anger, partly at me, partly at herself... mostly at her brother and Iroh.

"I do give you advice. Bend lightning right now and there's a very good chance of it grounding itself through your own wet clothes."

Li and Lo moved out from the shelter of the pagoda. "We had not heard that you were well-versed in the use of lightning, Lieutenant Liao." You see, this is one of those times when being better at detecting sarcasm would be helpful.

"Whatever." I turned and started squelching towards the gangway. "I'll turn out the garrison. Not much chance of catching them right now, but we might get lucky - at the least, we might get some idea of which direction they're taking."

"Don't do anything reckless." Azula's voice was as sharp even now that her words themselves betrayed her concern.

I smiled as I turned to walk down the gangway, knowing that she would see it. "Don't worry, my love. After all, I don't have your permission to die today."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her nod. And then a bolt of blue fire smashed down from her hand onto the pier, immolating the hapless Captain of the ship.

Like I said. Someone was going to die. In that moment, I was just glad that it hadn't turned out to be me.

.oOo.

The sergeant looked up as I crashed through the door to the garrison. I must have looked quite the sight, soaked to my skin and wet hair at all angles. "Now look sir, I told you that it wasn't exactly a pet..." he protested.

"Nothing to do with that, sergeant. Two prisoners just escaped from her highness' ship. They're on foot, probably heading inland along the river. We need a search party immediately."

He was a good man, sounding the assembly gong before wasting time with questions. "We don't have any komodo rhinos here, sir, so we'll be on foot ourselves," he warned.

"I understand." I looked down at my feet. "Are there any sandals or boots I can borrow? Mine are at the bottom of the harbour."

For a miracle, the man was able to provide sandals that fit well enough to do for now. By the time I had them tied on, around thirty soldiers had assembled in ranks outside the headquarters building. They were a more or less even mix between raw recruits and aging veterans – second-line troops that could defend a minor outpost if necessary but wouldn't be up to a real campaign.

What Zuko and Iroh could do to them given half a chance didn't bear thinking about.

I drew myself up to address them. "Less than an hour ago, two dangerous prisoners broke loose from Princess Azula's ship. They were last seen heading inland on foot. My orders are to capture them if possible, and to establish their direction of travel if not. Both men are military-trained firebenders who were under arrest for acts of treason against the Fire Lord and they must be considered desperate. If we find them, the first priority is to report their location, not to attempt any foolish heroics. "

The older soldiers seemed, on the whole, to take my words at face value. The younger ones seemed less impressed. I say younger, but really they were about Liao's age. Just more naive. "I suppose I could try stressing this, but some of you evidently aren't listening. Sergeant, you take half of the men and follow the north side of the river. I'll take the rest along the south bank."

"Yes sir." His face was impassive. "Do you have a description of the two fugitives?"

D'oh. "Thank you for reminding me, sergeant. You are aware that Prince Zuko and General Iroh have been staying in town."

"Yes sir."

"That's them."

He almost dropped his helmet. "Sir, you're asking us to arrest the Fire Lord's son and brother."

"Those are my orders. I received them from Princess Azula herself." (Actually, of course, I was improvising and usurping authority shamelessly but initiative is generally frowned upon in most militaries). "And she was personally assigned the mission of bringing them back in chains. You don't have to like that. I'm not ecstatic about it myself, but it is the will of the Fire Lord and that's all there is to it."

I turned and walked out the gate. After a moment there was a shout from inside the compound and about a dozen soldiers ran out after me. The sergeant followed them, another file of men following him. "I hope you know what you're doing, sir," he said in a long suffering voice.

"So do I." And I really wished I'd had time to go back and pick up my ba chui and some armour, but those were the breaks.

.oOo.

Much as I'd have liked to get myself chucked into the river by Iroh, by the time that the sun set I still hadn't found a trace of them. No footmarks, no discarded clothes (Iroh had been wearing armour, but I'm reasonably sure he'd ditch it since it was rather recognisable)... not even the top-knots that I presumed they would by now have cut off and thrown into the water.

"We aren't going to catch them in the darkness, sir."

"We aren't going to catch them at all," I replied to the sergeant. We'd regrouped at a convenient ford in the twilight and I'd started a campfire for the men. "It's clear that either they picked a different route or that they're moving too fast for us. In either case, you've done all that you can." I glanced around. "Sorry to have dragged you all this way."

He chuckled. "If nothing else, a little unscheduled camping should toughen the boys up."

"Buy them all some wine when you get back to town tomorrow." I pulled enough coins to cover for a small keg out of my belt pouch and handed them over to the sergeant.

"You aren't coming with us?"

A twist of my wrist and a flame came to life, cupped in one hand. "No, I'm heading back to the harbour. I have to report to her highness."

"I hope she lets you go back to your young lady then, sir. I've heard rumours about her highness' temper."

I laughed out loud at that. "Sergeant, she is my young lady. And I can promise you that she's every bit as fiery as rumour says." With a wave of one hand, I left them behind, walking swiftly through the otherwise dark night. Even with fire to guide me, I'd make faster progress by daylight, but something told me that Azula would want a report as soon as possible.

.oOo.

Sure enough, when I reached the ship she was there to greet me, although from her light robe she had been roused from her bed when I was seen coming down the pier. I didn't really mind. With her hair down, and only a thin robe between her and the wind she looked far more like the girl that Liao remembered from that island years ago.

"They got away?"

"They got away."

She sighed. "That's a shame. Father is going to be disappointed."

"That's very likely." I took a step into the wind, creating a windbreak for her. "I suppose that we can't return home without the pair of them?"

"Oh, I could. But that would mean that I had failed. You know that that is not acceptable." She rested one hand in the crook of my elbow and looked up at me. "Where do you think they'll go?"

"If they're caught in the Earth Kingdom, then they'll be killed. If they're caught here, on the other hand, they'll be placed in your custody." I remembered that part of the reasoning and saw no reason not to divulge that. "I'm sure that they fear the latter far more than mere death, which means they'll leave the colonies as fast as they can."

She smiled at that. "So we should...?"

I chuckled. "Is this a test?"

"That's right." She stepped closer. "You know why."

This was how she had been raised. Everything a test, a challenge from her father to ensure she had grown into what he wanted in a child, pruning away anything else. I cupped her face gently in my hand. "The obvious first. Public announcement that they're traitors, posters offering a generous reward for their persons, dead or alive. If they're desperate enough they might think that it would be daring to hide right under the nose of the Fire Nation. So close that door."

She pressed herself against me. "I announced it while you were giving chase. Posters will be displayed in all the colonies within the week, all across the Fire Nation by the end of the week after. My brother's disgrace will be total."

"After that, their movements depend on who is making the decisions. Iroh is smart. He'd find our enemies – not the Earth Kingdom perhaps, he's too hated there, but perhaps the Northern Water Tribe or some of the more primitive peoples in the southern continent. One old man and his nephew could melt into refugee groups without a trace." I could feel tension in her shoulders. "But that won't happen. Your uncle has been following your brother for three years and that isn't an easy habit to break. And Zuko will want what he always has. To redeem himself."

"The Avatar," Azula whispered triumphantly and relaxed against me. "Superbly reasoned, Liao. Just as I knew you would."

"Did you ever hear that Admiral Zhao captured the Avatar once?" I feel that her surprise was genuine. "Had him in chains and everything. But a mysterious swordsman broke him out that very night. Now, the Avatar doesn't associate with any swordsman. But your brother's ship was in port just then. And he's been travelling the world for years, meeting all sorts of people. Perhaps he realised that if someone else brought the Avatar to your father then he would be in exile forever. So if we capture the Avatar, then we'll have the ultimate bait for Zuko. We won't need to look for him: he will come to us."

.oOo.

Despite Azula's impatience to be off, it would take time for reports on the location of the Avatar to arrive. I took the time to track down some of Zuko's former crew, most of whom were generally unhelpful in that wonderfully obtuse way that they had. Silent insolence, I believe it was called at one time. Captain Jee, formerly Zuko's lieutenant, was an absolute master of it. It was probably a good thing for them that Azula wasn't asking the questions and a better thing for me that she didn't hear what I was asking them.

Then again, she had other things on her mind for the few days we were waiting. I was on the deck, working on a little project of mine when she stormed out of her rooms. "Liao! That little beast bit me!"

"Goodness, I can't imagine how painful that must be." I rubbed my neck and saw her colour slightly. "Let me have a look." She had, indeed been bitten, although not hard enough to draw blood. "A terrible injury, your highness. May I ask the fate of the perpetrator?"

"The... are _you_ testing _me_?" Her eyes narrowed dangerously.

I smiled. "Life is the test, Azula. Now, you have a prospectively useful minion to recruit. You know he's aggressive and until you've won him over he's going to be snappish. How are you going to handle this?"

"I will punish his transgression," she told me, turning to walk away. "He will never dare attack me again."

I kept my voice mild. "That is a second-rate solution, Azula. Fear is only half the equation. You know better than that."

Her voice was silky sweet, a danger sign. "Please educate me."

"Allow me to use your brother as an example." I pointed at Azula. "He fears you – a perfectly reasonable reaction. And fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred. A tool that hates you will turn in your hand, frequently at the worst possible moment. Show weakness, even for an instant, or even the perception of weakness, and your own agents might turn against you." And on that basis, I really shouldn't try reconciling Zuko to Azula and vice versa after saying that. "But how does Zuko feel about your father?"

Azula was a great many things, but she was never stupid. "Zuko fears our father... but he does not hate him... because Zuko loves him."

"And because of that, even now, Ozai would barely have to raise his hand for Zuko to return to loyal service. There is no question that your father is a genius in the field of leadership. It is often sufficient that those below you fear your wrath. But how much stronger than that is the control that you have over your servants if they also desire your approval for its own sake?"

She blinked. "Are you sure you just don't want me to hurt the mutt?"

The suggestion elicited a bark of laughter from me. "Azula, I don't even like dogs. For all I care we can spit-roast the little -"

And that's when she slapped me. I guess that if she was _really_ angry with me I would have been on fire. Women. Who can fathom them?

"You are _not_ cooking my dog." It went beyond being a statement of fact. It was a decree.

"Alright, alright. Just a turn of phrase." I held up my hands in surrender. No point making a fight over nothing.

She nodded her head approvingly and then reached up to brush at my cheek. "I see your point about how to train him though. That is quite insightful of you. I'll sure that father will be very pleased to hear that you hold him in such high regard."

No doubt. I'm sure second-degree flattery will secure me a prestigious promotion somewhere really distant and highly dangerous. "Well I don't like to gush." I returned my attention to the improvised oven I was building on the deck.

Azula, feeling suitably mollified, pretended to notice it for the first time. (1) "What in the world is that for? There's a perfectly adequate kitchen, you realise?"

"I don't think that the cooks would appreciate what I'm planning to cook." I pointed to the cup-cake shaped patties drying on a platter. I'd moulded them once experiment showed that mixture had dried enough and hopefully sunlight would further reduce the water content before I placed them in the oven.

She looked them over suspiciously. "What are they?"

"Caked black powder."

Very slowly Azula stepped back from them. Firebenders tend to be naturally just a little bit wary around that stuff since it's quite possible, if embarrassing, to create fire or sparks unintentionally. I seriously doubt Azula had ever done that without being in full control, but even so... "Fireworks?"

"Well, that's where I got it from, yes. It has other uses."

"That doesn't include eating it."

"Eat... ah. No. I'm not precisely planning to cook it. And all things considered, this is something I want to have a lot of room around me for. And possibly something to hide behind. If I'm correct, then once it's dried out and ground up, what is left will be quite a bit more potent than it was before. Concentrated, if you will."

Azula stabbed her finger towards the cakes. "So after baking them in your oven, you're going to grind them to powder? Something that could cause incidental sparks right in the middle of your concentrated black powder. How can you possibly construe that as anything but recklessness?"

"I do have some fairly substantial precautions in mind."

She took a deep breath. "I absolutely forbid you to do this on my ship. I will have servants carry out anything even remotely hazardous about this, while you will supervise from a safe distance."

I considered that very carefully. "Can we qualify that down to them doing anything hazardous to me? I was rather hoping to hurt some people with this." Possibly including your father, but let's not dwell on that detail.

.oOo.

Unfortunately, before I could resume my experiments at a new and more acceptable to Azula location, news arrived that the Avatar had been seen trying to cross the Kolau Mountains. Trying, because most of the army that had taken Omashu was still in the area and had managed to put enough flaming boulders into the sky to drive him back north again.

Eventually, he would either go somewhere else or find a way around the mountains. Or, as was actually the case, go under them but there wasn't much point revealing that to anyone, was there? But that left a window of opportunity and so we had to rush south quickly.

For a given value of quickly, of course.

Even the gruesome twosome of Li and Lo had noticed this, and as we stopped – again – for camp when it was barely approaching twilight, they voiced their concerns.

"When tracking your brother and uncle, travelling with the royal procession may no longer be an option."

"May no longer be wise, if you hope to keep the element of surprise."

Azula was looking quite sinister. This might be because she had the sheep-dog puppy curled in her lap and was petting it in a way that Blofeld would have died envious of. "You're right," she agreed. "The Royal Procession is deadweight. If I want to catch my prey, I must be agile, nimble." Her eyes flicked to me. "I need a small, elite team. Liao, it's time for me to introduce you to some old friends of mine."

"School friends?" I wasn't guessing, of course. "Omashu."

"I don't like that name." She ruffled her pet's wool casually. "I'll have to do something about that while we're there. Conveniently however, another friend of mine is also in the area. Have you ever been to the circus?"

Liao's memory indicated yes, so I nodded. "Never with you though, which will make this time far more memorable than any other." And then I remembered how she'd persuaded Ty Lee to join her. Ye gods, what if she took my words as encouragement? "Is there something particular about circuses that you enjoy?"

"Just one of the performers. I believe I may have mentioned Ty Lee to you once or twice."

"Oh yes. One of your conquests." I arched one eyebrow. "Should I be jealous? There are all those fascinating tales about the Royal Fire Academy for Girls and what the students get up to."

"You'll have to share some of them with me at some later date. But that's rather like me asking about your adventures as a cadet in the army. I assure you we girls were always happy to entertain ourselves by imagining what you young men got up to together." Her cheeks were somewhat pink, although I was uncertain of the precise cause. "Should I be the jealous one?"

My impulsive tongue decided to get me into trouble. "Oh it doesn't count if you're cadets, your highness. Everyone knows that." Azula's eyes went wide. Looked like I'd gone outside her comfort zone there. Hmm. Probably best to reel that back in. "It builds character and self-discipline, doing close order drill with a raging," I trailed off for just a touch longer than taking breath would require, letting her mind meander through the blanks. "Hangover."

Azula's eyes were just a hair wider than she probably thought that they were. She managed to avoid squeaking out an enquiry, probably because Li and Lo were cackling shamelessly. I turned and eyed the two old women with a look of innocent confusion. "Was it something I said?"

.oOo.

Ah yes, the ineffable scent of the circus. Magical. In the same sense that the scent of the sea is in fact the smell of rotting vegetation along the shoreline. I tried very hard not to pay attention to the sources of the various odours that assailed us as we made our way through the pink tents (2). It was quite early in the day, so most of inhabitants were more concerned with maintenance than entertainment.

Azula stopped suddenly and turned to face one of the tents, outside of which a young girl was in a handstand. No... a fingerstand, one finger from each hand. Was that even possible? Granted she was a bitty little thing... "Ty Lee. Could that possibly be you?" The question was evidently rhetorical. And that answered my question: her fingers were probably so reinforced with chi that she could drive nails with them.

"Azula!" She smiled with every sign of actual joy, flipped to her feet, pirouetted and sank to her knees, grovelling. The motion made it clear if I hadn't noticed before that she might be a small girl, but she wasn't a _little_ girl. A moment later she bounced out of that and jumped forward to embrace my fiancée. "It is so good to see you!"

"Please, don't let me interrupt your... whatever it is you were doing."

Ty Lee didn't seem at all upset by Azula's dismissive words, instead bouncing happily into another gymnastic posture, one that I'm sure would have cracked my spine if I tried it. Imagine lying on the ground, propping your chin on the heel of both hands and then curving your legs back until one is pointed directly forwards over your head. Ouch.

"Tell me, what is the daughter of a nobleman doing here? Certainly our parents didn't send us to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls to end up in -" Azula sighed in distaste. "Places like this." Given the direction of her attention – upon two men trying to move a reluctant mother platypus-bear wearing a red vest and a cap away from her cub – I could see her point.

"I thought they sent you there for the usual educational reasons: turning you into carbon copies of themselves." I smirked sideways at Azula. "What? That's the usual purpose of the institution."

"You say that as if it's a bad thing."

"Well that depends on which parent you're expected to emulate, doesn't it."

She frowned, thought about my words for a moment and then shook her head. "Ty Lee, this is my fiancé Liao Quan. I'm sure you remember him."

Her face scrunched up and there was one hundred percent less squee than I had, on some level, expected. "I've never met him before, Azula." Then she smiled brilliantly. And, I feel, less than entirely sincerely. "But I remember everything that you told me about him." She folded her other leg forwards and planted her feet on top of her head, then gave me a slightly dubious look. "I thought you'd be glowing with the light of ten thousand suns. She said that about you, you know."

I did. Azula's idea of a romantic letter had settled down a little from that level of purple prose, over time, but it was still memorable. "She merely saw herself reflected in my eyes."

Azula responded by shifting ever so slightly closer to my side and squeezed my hand. "Are you sure you've never met? You're cousins, after all."

"The opportunity never seemed to arise," I murmured. "Well met, my cousin."

"Yeah, sure!" Chirpy, happy... and just that little undertone of distaste. Okay, seriously. How had I managed to get on Ty Lee's bad side? I mean, as best I recall she hardly had one!

"Anyway, I'm terribly glad I found you, Ty Lee." Azula's smile grew predatory. "I have a proposition for you. I'm -"

I coughed.

"- we're hunting a traitor. You remember my old fuddy-duddy uncle, don't you?"

"Oh yeah, he was so funny!"

"Ah... he's thrown me into the sea at twice so far," I pointed out. I decided the fact that Azula had gotten the same treatment didn't need to be raised.

"Really?" There was absolutely no need for Ty Lee to sound so enthusiastic about that detail.

Azula smiled. "I would be honoured if you would join us in our mission."

To my surprise, Ty Lee seemed genuinely torn. I'd expected her to be less happy about the idea. "Obviously, it would be dangerous. Why don't you think it over? We want to see your show, after all. Azula tells me that it's not to be missed."

Just for a moment, while Azula was giving me a significant look whose meaning I really couldn't decipher, Ty Lee looked daggers at me. "Sure, you'll have a great time." I didn't miss that she said nothing about _her_ enjoying having Azula in the audience though.

.oOo.

(1) If anyone thinks for an instant that anything happened on the ship that she didn't know about it, I have a bridge to sell them at a bargain price.

(2) I'm not sure why they were pink. Possibly they'd once been red and simply faded. Possibly Ty Lee won a bet. I was rather afraid to ask.


	5. Chapter 5

"We're deeply honoured to have the Fire Lord's daughter and her fiancé at our humble circus. Tell us if there's anything we can do to make the show more enjoyable."

Azula stroked her pet. She hadn't named it yet. I'd suggested Snappy, but she didn't go for it. Pity, the potential for jokes was almost limitless. "I will," she assured the circusmaster.

Up above, Ty Lee was beginning her routine. Given the height involved, I really couldn't see all that much but she seemed to be supporting herself with one hand on an upturned table, itself resting upon a spindle on the high wire. While herself being upside down. An impressive feat of balance.

"Incredible," Azula crooned as Ty Lee switched hands. "Do you think she'll fall."

The circusmaster seemed insulted by the notion. "Of course not."

"Then wouldn't it make it more interesting if you removed the net?"

The poor man – boggled slightly. "Um. The thing is, the performers -"

"You're right, you're right." Azula appeared to relent. I knew better, but the circusmaster closed his eyes in relief. "That's been done."

Leaning over, I whispered, "What are you thinking?" into her ear.

She smiled smugly and turned her own head so that her lips were next to my own ear. I could feel her breath tickling against my skin as she whispered: "Why not set the net on fire?"

Now even if I knew it would work out in the end (1) and even if Ty Lee didn't like me very much, I do think that that was an unnecessary thing to do. So I smiled slightly and whispered back: "Wouldn't that discourage the wild animals from waiting below to eat her?"

"What wild animals?"

I drew back slightly and looked at the circusmaster. "What sort of dangerous animals do you have?"

"Well, our circus boasts the most exotic assortment -"

"Release them all!" Azula ordered.

.oOo.

"What an exquisite performance." Azula had brought flowers to congratulate her friend on the success of the night (2). The audience certainly hadn't minded having an animal act underneath the trapeze, even when a couple of the herbivores had fallen prey to the carnivores present. I suppose the circus had more in common in some ways with the ancient Roman tradition than with the more modern equivalent. "I can't wait to see how you'll top yourself tomorrow. Are you going to set the net on fire?"

Ty Lee stared at herself in the mirror rather than face her friend. "I'm sorry Azula, but unfortunately there won't be a show tomorrow." Her eyes were very wide, possibly to hold back tears. She stood up to place the headpiece she'd been wearing up on a hook.

"Really?"

"You don't think I'd leave you to handle a dangerous fugitive like your uncle alone, do you?" She turned and smiled. "If the offer's still open?"

Azula smiled triumphantly. "Of course you're welcome, Ty Lee. And just think: it'll give you and your cousin time to get to know each other."

"Thank you so much." Her smile slipped ever so slightly. "I have to settle a few things with the circusmaster, but I'll be back before long."

"Take all the time you need." Azula could be gracious in victory although she rarely chose to be. "We'll be leaving for Omashu in the morning to collect Mai."

"It'll be just like old times." Her eyes flicked to me. "With one addition. Azula, could I borrow my cousin for an hour or two? He can help with my luggage and we can get acquainted."

So I'm not only superfluous, but she also thinks I'm a packhorse? If I wasn't such a nice guy I'd probably do something unpleasant to her luggage. Mind you, I'm not that nice a guy. I reached over and touched Azula's shoulder. "Since we're parting for a while, and neither of your chaperones are here..."

The kiss was almost tentative, as if Azula was uncertain of being so demonstrative in front of Ty Lee.

I kept my arms around her. "I'm going to miss you."

"You'll only be an hour or two."

"It will feel like forever."

She leant forwards and our lips met again. Funny how that happens. When she drew back, she was breathing heavily. "How do I look?"

"Not a hair out of place," I assured her, reluctantly letting her step away. "I can see I'll have to try harder."

Azula laughed. "You'll burn your... lips."

That's the sort of thing I might have said. Was I redeeming her? Or corrupting her? Was there any difference and did I care? "Or my heart."

She kissed me again, fiercely this time, and then she was gone and I was faced by Ty Lee, or at least her back. I will admit to having been sufficiently distracted not to have noticed if she had turned her back prior to our public displays of affection or had waited until Azula was gone. Either way, her ignoring me was ostentatious – 'I'm ignoring you, can't you tell that you do not have my attention?, do you not realise I am snubbing you?' – and essentially pointless since by turning away Ty Lee was facing her mirror, which was reflecting me right in front of her face.

I picked out a convenient closed chest, pressed down on the lid to check it would bear the weight and then sat on it. Patience is not only a virtue, but also a very apt weapon upon the social battlefield.

The silence was awkward, grew uncomfortable and finally became intolerable. For her, anyway. Ty Lee was born to chatter.

"You seem very attached even if you didn't see each other for years."

"Meeting each other again has changed our relationship," I admitted. "After two years of being restricted to writing back and forth, it's intoxicating, seeing and hearing all the things that the letters couldn't tell us about each other. At least, that's the way I feel."

Ty Lee laced her fingers together and then turned around. "I need to get into that chest."

How could any gentleman refuse so charming a petition. I stood up and stepped aside to give her access. When she stepped past me one of her fingers stabbed out, striking my elbow before I could react. The arm went numb immediately, hanging limply. A curious experience and quite unpleasant. I can see why Aang and his companions would flee her.

Hmm. That might imply that they were more fearful of Ty Lee than Azula. Interesting, if not something I would necessarily share with either girl.

Rather than react aggressively, which was Liao's instinct – and a powerful one – I merely arched my one eyebrow. "If you're making a point, consider it taken." And my own point in return: fear or anger would be the expected response, would mean falling in with Ty Lee's plan, whatever it was. My apparent indifference was not something she had anticipated.

And so, she hesitated and then opened the chest, removing garments that I shall not describe for your titillation. Once she was well out of arms reach she turned again. "Whose idea was it to turn the animals loose?"

"Mine." I paused for her to assess that. "Azula wanted to set the safety net on fire."

Ty Lee's voice was sugary, sweet and insincere: "The two of you deserve each other."

"Spirits forbid we should all receive what we truly deserve."

.oOo.

The walk to Omashu wasn't all that strenuous – all I had to do was keep pace with the poor devils carrying Azula's palanquin. Which was about the size of a small car. Given that there were only four of them, we weren't moving all that fast. Hopefully she was intending to leave the thing behind when we reached the 'agile and nimble' stage of pursuit.

"So," she asked, as we crossed the bridge into Omashu. "Did you two enjoy yourselves after I was gone?"

We exchanged looks. "It was an interesting conversation, mostly about you."

"Yeah," Ty Lee agreed quickly. "Liao was telling me how you're getting along now that you don't have to communicate with letters."

"I sort of miss that," Azula admitted.

"I'll start writing one, next chance I get." I glanced over the side of the bridge and fought back a gulp. It was quite a drop to the canyon below and I was relieved once we reached the gates and had solid ground under our feet again. I'm not an airbender and frankly I could live without dealing with heights.

Which probably means I'll have to confront them at some point soon. Joy.

Mai was waiting for us outside the Governor's mansion. Presumably the guards had sent a warning ahead to prepare a suitable welcome. No sooner had the palanquin been placed on the ground than the princess had jumped down and she walked ahead to greet her friend. Ty Lee lagged a few steps behind while I waited, leaning back against the palanquin while they had their girl talk.

The girl bowed her head, clasping her hands in front of her in petition. "Please tell me you're here to kill me." She raised her eyes to look at Azula, smirking slightly and then the two of them snickered at what was obviously an old joke.

"It's great to see you, Mai," Azula said fondly, giving her a perfunctory hug and then stepping back so Ty Lee could throw herself wholeheartedly into the taller girl's arms.

Apparently surprised by her presence, Mai returned the hug. I noticed in passing that like Azula she wore her fingernails long and sharp, which was particularly obvious with the dark red nail polish she was wearing. "I thought you ran off and joined the circus. You said it was your calling."

Ty Lee stepped back slightly. "Well Azula called a little louder."

"I have a mission and I need you both."

Mai stepped forward immediately. "Count me in. Anything to get me out of this place." Her eyes flicked left, towards the mansion. Possibly she didn't so much mean out of Omashu as much as away from her family.

"I'm in awe of your friends, Azula." Now that reunion was over, I walked a little closer. "Lady Mai, it's been quite a while, hasn't it?"

She nodded without any great show of enthusiasm. "Liao Quan."

Unlike Ty Lee, Mai had met Liao once or twice although we weren't exactly friends – or much of anything to each other when you came down to it. Just faces in a crowd, and since Liao's marital future had long since been decided, there had been no political reason for Mai's parents to seek closer ties to me. Azula's letters had made enough mention of her to cover for at least some knowledge on my part though. "I saw a lot of soldiers on the streets – is the city restless?"

She frowned slightly. "Most of the rebels in the city managed to escape last night. They took my little brother hostage."

"Now that's playing with fire." I frowned. "Okay, bad pun. But they have to know that they're going to get b- that they'll be facing the wrath of a very angry governor if one hair on his head is hurt."

"How did they manage to get out of the city?" Azula asked, focusing upon the tactical situation.

Mai grimaced. "They pretended that they were stricken by pentapox. Dad had them driven out of the gates to spare the rest of the population."

"Pentapox?" I frowned. "What's that?"

"Oh, I think I've heard of that." Ty Lee said. "Isn't that the one that rots bits of your body until they fall off?"

"What bits of your body?" Azula asked with rather gruesome interest.

I consulted Liao's memory while . Nothing came to mind, confirming that Katara had invented it on the spur of the moment. "It's the first that I've heard of it. Is it something local?"

"How would I know?" Mai sounded bored by the whole thing.

"I suppose it doesn't matter. Have they made any demands regarding your brother?"

She shrugged, although I don't think she was quite as indifferent as she pretended.

Azula and I exchanged looks. "That sort of behaviour can't be tolerated," she declared. "It's clear I'm going to have to straighten things out here before I can continue with my mission."

She swept into Governor's mansion, with the rest of us trailing behind her. Family time was over and now the princess was back in business. And unlike her, I knew we were heading for our first encounter with the mighty and feared Avatar that had been the Fire Nation's bogeyman for generations.

I probably should have taken that a bit more seriously.

.oOo.

I'll skip past the lambasting that Azula gave to Mai's father. It was embarrassing watching a middle-aged man grovelling to a slip of a girl and her decision to rename the city as New Ozai merely highlighted her daddy issues.

Ostensibly Azula's plan was straightforward: meet with the rebels in front of the statue being built of her father (which would be even larger than the one in Fire Fountain City and I winced at the expense of moving it part by part to Omashu) with the captive King Bumi and hand him over in return for TomTom. Even without my foreknowledge, I would have had my suspicions about that.

"The terms are three of them and three of us."

"Ty Lee and I will accompany you," declared Azula. "Liao will oversee delivery of King Bumi. We'll use a crane to move the casket that he's imprisoned him in. That way there's no risk of him using his earthbending to cause problems."

I scratched my head. "One thing that bothers me is how they're planning to get into the city to make the exchange. It's not as if they're walking up to the gates. They're coming to the heart of the city, which means that they still have a high degree of access to Omashu."

"You're right. Just another mess made by the Governor. What's the point of driving the rebels out of New Ozai if they can come back any time they want to."

"If it was that easy then they wouldn't have needed to fake a plague to get out the gates." My brow furrowed. "Whatever their method is, it must be something that works for a small group but not a large one. If it's earthbenders bringing them in then they can't have access to many of them."

"Why does it matter?" That was Mai, betraying one hundred percent more interest in my tangent than I had expected.

I smiled at her. "I don't approve of kidnapping. And I intend to ensure that my opinion is widely known and widely respected. The degree to which I think this should be taken would be such that anyone contemplating this course of action will have screaming nightmares at the very thought. I'm sure you understand that my interest in their proposed escape route is more than academic."

Mai nodded slowly. Ty Lee looked startled. Azula smiled approvingly. If one of them called me Charlie I think I'd probably die laughing.

.oOo.

There were three small figures standing on the scaffolding when Azula and her friends reached the agreed point of exchange. The angle looking down from the crane wasn't great, but with the aid of a spyglass I could make out that one of them was wearing an orange turban and that the other two were wearing blue. That made it fairly evident who they were.

Good. If my presence was sending sufficient ripples at this stage to have changed this, then I would have had to discard almost expectation I had.

I nodded to the crane's operator and he started unspooling the chains holding King Bumi's casket, dropping it down behind Mai's party. The mad king of Omashu had been living up to his name the whole time we were moving him, and it was something of a relief not to have to listen to him anymore.

Of course then there was a brief moment of conversation and Mai stepped forwards, giving the handsignal to abort. How unexpected!

"I'll leave this in your hands," I said, slapping the operator on the shoulder as he started hoisting the casket up again. With my other hand I lifted my Ba Chui from where it had been resting in a corner. "Looks like something just went wrong down there."

Leaving the cab I ran across the scaffolding, to where I'd left a convenient rope and pulley when we were planning this. Down below, a dust cloud marked Aang kicking off for a rescue attempt and I saw Azula charging to meet him, blue fire slashing in front of her. Aang leapt up over it and out of sight, below the planks I was crossing. A moment later he emerged into sight again, this time on his glider. So much for his disguise.

That wasn't my concern though. I knew that Azula would head for a pulley near the centre of the structure but my own was at the far end. Grabbing a loop that I'd prepared, I dropped off the edge of the scaffolding. A weight on the other end of the rope hurtled upwards – it was lighter than I was, but just heavy enough to keep my own plunge from being terminal.

As it was, I reached the far end of the platform just in time to see Sokka skidding on the back towards the edge. Since he was carrying TomTom, that was no small concern. Swinging off the line – which promptly whipped upwards again without my weight at the end – I landed practically on top of him as he scrambled to his feet.

Ty Lee, who had been closing in as well was suddenly whipped backwards when a water whip latched onto her ankle. Turning, I kicked Sokka's feet out from under him, careful to make sure that he'd land on his back rather than the baby and pumped my left hand, sending a ball of fire to dissipate the water.

Sensibly, Sokka took the opportunity to scramble away, heading for a ladder leading further down the structure but I caught hold of him by the back of his bandoliers and hauled him back. "Let go of the baby."

"I did already!" He was already twisting around to try to get free, but his hands were empty, so I dumped him off the edge of the scaffold.

It's not as harsh as it sounds. I could have thrown him down to the next large section of decking, which was thirty or forty feet down. Instead I was nice about it and aimed for a platform only one level down. Unless he landed badly I figured he wouldn't have more than the wind knocked out of him.

Blue fire rushed from the sky and I couldn't resist looking up to see Azula apparently flying (she'd let momentum on another pulley fling her high in the air) and hurling more of her trademark waves of blue fire at Aang and Bumi. Unfortunately what this accomplished was breaking the already weakened chains supporting Bumi's casket and dropping the two back down into the construction site.

I didn't wait to see if Azula had a landing site in mind for herself. Instead I scooped up TomTom and ran for where Ty Lee had bounced to her feet. "Get the kid clear." I shoved TomTom into her arms. "Go!"

She looked indignant for a moment and then acquiesced, running into the shadows below the scaffold. Great, baby clear, that's objective number one out of the way. I'm not psychotic after all. With a crash Azula landed in one of the stone basins used to carry goods down Omashu's chutes and started careering down one of said chutes in hot pursuit of Aang. Okay, objective two (recapture Bumi) seemed to be in the bag. Easy enough since he wasn't actually trying to escape. That left me with...

The sound of water pinpointed where Mai and Katara were fighting. Right, get Azula's friends through this intact. And since Ty Lee wouldn't be around to tamper with Katara's bending that meant that Mai could probably do with some help right now. I poured fire into the head of the Ba Chui as I ran, the metal almost glowing with the heat.

Katara had latched a waterwhip on Mai's right arm, freezing it to trap the limb before the older girl could hurl more steel at her. I brought my fiery club down where water began to freeze, shattering part of the ice and vaporising water. Spinning, I brought the weapon round in an arc that would have clipped the waterbender's head if she hadn't retracted her truncated whip block it, more water flashing to steam.

"The child is safe." Reassurance for Mai and although she did not know it was intended that way, for Katara.

Once, twice, thrice. Hot metal smashed into shielding water. My breath was hot and fast. She was not giving ground and she was probably not tiring herself as much as I was. Fire is all aggression, water redirects that force. In a contest of endurance, I would lose.

Of course, this wasn't a fair fight. Mai had freed her arm at last and three daggers spun through the air towards Katara. The waterbender shortened her whip, spinning off a second one to lash at the floor. A board broke, one end flipping up to catch two of the knives and she ducked her head to avoid the last. It didn't quite work – the blade was sharp enough to slash through her braided hair as it whipped behind her. About half the hair fell away, leaving the rest to unravel which seemed to startle her.

"I realise you're both girls, but did you really need to style her hair in the middle of a fight?"

Who said that?

Two pairs of eyes glared at me.

Oh crap, I'm a dead man.

Apparently attacking her hair was enough to convince Katara to move over to the offensive, which broke my rhythm and let her smack me across the face with the thickest portion of her whip. The look on Mai's face as I crashed backwards to the floor, pain announcing that my nose was broken, was profoundly unsympathetic although she didn't let feminine solidarity prevent her from sending several darts at Katara, one of which caught her in the leg.

Katara screamed in pain, which was punctuated by Sokka – presumably under the impression that it would be faster than coming up and over the edge – riding Appa up _through_ the scaffolding. I will leave to your imagination the damage that a six ton flying bison does when he decides to ram through relatively simple planking.

Mai, being on her feet, was able to jump away from the devastation. I, being flat on my back, was in a less enviable position as the decking erupted upwards and I fell to the next level. Given it wasn't so very different from what I'd done to Sokka myself, some might call that karma.

By the time I had scrambled to my feet, Appa was already soaring off over the city, in the same general direction taken by Aang and Azula.

Mai jumped down. "Are you hurt?"

I glanced over the broken boards, an plan already forming. A crazy, dangerous plan, pretty much like everything that had happened so far. "Nothing serious. You?" Finding what I was looking for, three planks still held together by a set of crossbeams, I picked it up.

"The same." She stared at my prize. "What are you going to do?"

I started running for the nearest chute. "They're all headed the same way as Azula. Are you coming?"

"Coming where?" She ran after me and then saw my destination. "Are you... Stop."

I didn't. A moment later sharp metal was flying at me. I later deduced that she was trying to pin my clothes to the scaffolding to force me to a halt. At the time, I didn't have the time for such reasoning – I swept the boards around to intercept the knives. "Thanks, I needed some handholds." One more step and then I dived into the chute. At the last minute someone crashed into me, a desperate last minute tackle, but all it did was bounce us off the side of the chute as I began to slide faster and faster down it, Mai hanging desperately off my side, trying not to be ground to mincemeat against the stone.

"Idiot!" I shouted, kicking off fire behind me to power us out of the side-by-side slalom that her momentum had put us into. Gripping one of the knives embedded in the wood, I managed to draw my legs up under myself and onto the planks.

Mai yelped into my ear, writhing against me as she tried to keep hold. "You're an idiot."

I'd never tried my hand at winter sports, but this felt uncomfortably like attempting to bobsleigh on a tea tray. It would have been risky with just me. With two of us...

Well, it wasn't like I could stop us at this point. We were going way too fast. Which suggested a certain problem would present itself in three or four minutes. "Stop playing around and get on my back!" I shouted, the wind inside the chute snatching my words backwards.

With me holding still for her, Mai was able to do so. Then, with a groan, I pulled my knees forward and pushed my shoulders up, leaving her clinging piggy-back upon me while I was kneeling up on the boards. The air resistance was trying very hard to drag us off them and I had to tighten my grip as I looked ahead.

Even with my new, higher posture I couldn't see all that far ahead. The elevation of the chute meant that most of what I could see over the sides was nothing but empty sky. I couldn't even see Appa, which probably meant that they were far ahead of me and lower down. And with my feet under me, I couldn't exactly throw more fire backwards to accelerate us faster than we were already going.

Not that I was really worried about Azula's ability to handle Aang – if the little monk stood and fought, I was confident that at this point she'd make mincemeat out of him. Which would have its own problems, of course. And with Katara injured there was no chance whatsoever that Aang or his friends would be doing anything other than getting the hell away from Omashu.

Unless, of course, the sight of Katara's blood convinced Aang to go all Avatar State on Azula.

Couldn't this damned thing go any faster?

I had only a moment's notice, the sight of broken torii over the chute, to identify the place where Aang must have tried to slow Azula down by dropping the wooden beams in her path. The path where her cart had blasted through the obstruction was mostly clear, but I hurled a wave of fire ahead anyway to remove some secondary debris from that. I had to force the fire ahead of us to avoid running face first into my own flames, and as it was the move slowed us.

Of course, that wouldn't work on the next obstruction: the stone Bumi would have bent up to stop Azula if the events of the chase had taken place as I recalled them from the show.

"How are you going to stop us?" Mai actually seemed to have calmed down.

"I've been wondering about that," I told her and was rewarded by her nails jabbing into my pectorals, even through my shirt. "You're perfectly free to get off and walk, you know." I saw the irregularity in the chute ahead of us now. The slope had eased somewhat and we'd stopped picking up speed, but we were still moving dangerously fast. "In fact, I insist."

With a convulsive heave I straightened, snapping one foot forward to brace myself against Mai's knife before the force of the wind hurled us back off the boards. At the last minute I whirled my arms, dislodging her grip and then forced the most concentrated flame I could manage forwards, driving me back against Mai as we arced over the boulder, the abruptly halted planks shattering beneath us.

.oOo.

(1) For Ty Lee. I didn't particularly care about the wellbeing of the animals, and setting predators loose next to a fire seemed a touch dangerous in general.

(2) The fact that they were black may have provided something of a mixed message through.


End file.
